Editor’s Miscellany: More Rooms With More Views

By Kyle Hoepner

Friday is the opening day for this year’s Rooms With a View, the annual festival of interior design vignettes at Connecticut’s Southport Congregational Church. This marks the second instance of the showcase since the passing of design icon Albert Hadley, for so many years the event’s guiding spirit, but 2013 honorary chairman Thom Filicia, who started his own career at Parish-Hadley Associates, carries on the torch.

Filicia has chosen “Americanism: Timely and Timeless Design” as the theme, and if you visit this weekend you will see that theme interpreted by twelve leading New York City and Connecticut designers:

Saranda Berisa, Wadia Associates
Nancy Corbett, Corbett Wright
Tiffany Eastman, Tiffany Eastman Interiors
Thom Filicia with Sedgewick & Brattle, Thom Filicia, Inc.
Steven Gambrel, S. R. Gambrel, Inc.
Carey Karlan, Last Detail Interior Design
Bryant Keller, Bryant Keller Interiors
Carolyn Kron and Tricia Izzo, Shelter Interiors
Francine Murnane, Francine Murnane Interior Design
Claudia Ruger and Amy Ruger Whiteley, Ruger Interiors
Lynne Scalo, Lynne Scalo Design
Victoria Vought, Victoria Vought Designs

I don’t want to give away too much in advance—but it can’t hurt to share sketches of a few designers’ intended reflections on what Filicia terms “classic simplicity with an unexpected, modern touch.”

Vignette by Fairfield, Connecticut’s, Shelter Interiors. Sketches courtesy of Rooms With a View 2013.

Designer Steven Gambrel’s vision for his miniature space.

The sketch from Saranda Berisa of Wadia Associates is just as tight and tidy as one would expect.

As it happens, some of this year’s Rooms With a View designers have also had house projects featured in New England Home Connecticut over the past few years. In case you’d like to take a look at some of that work, check out these links:

Designer Carey Karlan’s own house in Darien. Photo by Laura Moss; click here to see more.

Another house in Darien, also designed by Karlan. Photo by John Gould Bessler; click here to see more.

Designer Tiffany Eastman’s glamorous bedroom in downtown Stamford. Photo by John Gould Bessler; click here to see more.

The weekend also includes a fashion show and numerous special events involving edible goodies, and on Saturday from 3:00–5:00 p.m. Filicia and fellow designers Mario Buatta, James Magni, Edie Van Breems, and Rhonda Eleish will host a book signing.

If you can make it, I’d highly recommend a visit.

Rooms With a View
November 8–10
Southport Congregational Church
524 Pequot Ave.
Southport, CT 06890
(203) 255-4538
rwav@southportucc.org
southportucc.org
General admission $20; see the RWAV website for hours and related special events.