The Inside

Forgive me, for I have sinned. I did sneak a couple of pix of the house on Saturday. But I HAD to! The interiors are just so incredible that the devil made me do it... As I said to House the other day, "Heaven for the view, hell for the company".

The Garretts who owned Evergreen had three boys, so naturally, they needed a place for their schooling and recreation. So they built an addition that housed a billiards room, a bowling alley and a theatre. The ceilings in the theatre were painted and stenciled by Leon Bakst, the Russian painter who created sets for the Ballet Russes. Apparently, he lived with the Garretts for about six months and did a lot of decorative painting throughout the house. The reception/dressing room on the side of the theatre has a rooster motif, echoed in the stenciled ceiling. The ceiling is curved slightly, so it was a chore!

There were ten different stencils required to do each repeat. If you look closely along the bottom of the image above, you can just see the 10 numbers.

One of the rooms on the main floor had the most interesting walls, which were almost contemporary in their theme. Again, stencils were applied to the walls, and instead of paint, plaster was applied, so the motif was slightly raised. The room was painted a lovely celery green with white. I can't even imagine having to repaint this room.

Another simple but elegant detail was the tiebacks for the curtains. Instead of being pulled back all the way to the window frame, there was a button set about 12 inches from the window edge of the curtain (I am sure that there's a more technical term for this!) and then the tieback was buttoned to that.

Here are some more exterior shots. Cupola on the theatre wing of the house.

I love interesting doors. Here's another one for the collection.


I am always looking at contrasts, here between the straight lines of the columns and the organic form of the trees.Thanks for visiting... see you in hell!