Editor’s Miscellany: Tom Scheerer in Boston

By Kyle Hoepner

Designer Tom Scheerer. All photos courtesy of The Vendome
Press, unless otherwise noted

Although his roots are in the New York–New Jersey–Long Island region, it’s sometimes hard to believe that Tom Scheerer isn’t a New Englander—or perhaps he was, in a former life. At any rate, he seems to have a direct line to the gods of perfection in what he calls his “no-nonsense Yankee sensibility.”

Scheerer will be at the Boston Design Center next Wednesday afternoon, April 2, to chat with House Beautiful editor-at-large Chesie Breen, with a book signing and cocktails at the building’s brand-new Quadrille showroom to follow.

Chesie Breen. Photo from editoratlarge.com

One topic for discussion (although I’m sure the talk will range far and wide) will be Tom Scheerer Decorates, the recent book on his work by Mimi Read, with sumptuous photography by Francesco Lagnese.

I asked Scheerer earlier this week how he ended up with the kind of tightly constructed, yet easygoing, decorating style that feels so apt for New England. “It’s subconscious, I think; it comes from my upbringing. My grandparents had fairly elaborate houses, but no decorator was involved. Their interiors were improvised, in a way, using furniture that came with the house, or was bought while traveling—picked up here and there. One of my grandmothers had a knack for making nice, charming houses without, seemingly, too much fuss. She didn’t suffer over them the way people suffer over decorating now.”

Entrance hall to a home on Maine’s Mount Desert Island.

A dining room on the Upper East Side

Library of a house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas.

On his connection with Quadrille: “I’ve been buying fabrics from John Knott since he purchased the company. Alan Campbell, a mentor early in my career, was big part of Quadrille’s roster of lines when John bought and combined them. Then, twenty years ago, while I was doing a house in Washington, I discovered that he could have discontinued wallpapers made. I brought him an old Chippendale-style bamboo paper, which I later used again for the Lyford Cay Club—then it took off into a kind of cult, using this one wallpaper print! Now once or twice a year I’ll bring them a pattern that they will produce, and the patterns do pretty well. I suppose that makes me a kind of unofficial design associate.”

Grisaille wallpaper in a Brooklyn Heights apartment

A bedroom in Manhattan

A Florida powder room features Lyford Trellis wallpaper, one
of Scheerer’s co-creations with Quadrille.

There are still seats left for Tom Scheerer’s April 2 appearance in Boston, which is open to the trade and consumers. Please note that separate RSVPs are required for the 4:00 p.m. panel discussion and the 5:00 p.m. Quadrille showroom reception. To register for the panel discussion, please visit http://BDCtsdecorates.eventbrite.com. To register for the reception following, send your RSVP to RSVP@quadrilleinc.com.

And if you simply want a copy of the book—highly recommended—you can find links to buy it here.