Three Stand-Out Vignettes from Southport’s Rooms with a View

Southport’s twenty-ninth annual Rooms with a View show house fundraiser proves that six-by-eight feet can still pack a punch.

Courtney Blanton’s vignette was inspired by the time she stumbled upon a community of Romani people in a tranquil forest glade while traveling around India. The intricately carved wagons, or vardos, enchanted the interior designer. “Each vardo told a story,” she explains, “and I wanted to evoke that magic.” Blanton set the scene with Au Bord du Lac, a linen tapestry wallpaper from Pierre Frey. “The darker colors and layers of texture echo the embrace of the trees and mystery of the Romani camp,” she says. The ceiling, painted in high-gloss Harley Green from Little Greene, reflects the soft light cast by a pair of sconces from Stratford Antique Center. Vintage and antique pieces interspersed throughout “give the sense of treasures passed down from ancestors,” Blanton explains. An oil painting the designer found years ago presides over the whole scene. It depicts a stately woman wearing a bowler hat and sitting in a pose of quiet contemplation, as if she’s reflecting on a life well-traveled. “She hung above my own fireplace for a long time—it’s a very special piece,” says Blanton.

Barsanti Desmone design partners Dan Barsanti and Chris Desmone opted to pay homage to artist and textile designer Rena Levine, who just happens to be Barsanti’s wife. “We wanted to embrace the small space,” Barsanti says, “and draw you in with texture, pattern, and a monochromatic palette.” Accordingly, Levine’s watercolored Bilbao Moss and San Remo Moss fabrics cocoon the vignette on all sides, while her Cosmos wallpaper provides a vibrant foundation. The ceiling, swathed in the wallpaper version of San Remo Moss on silver grasscloth, acts as the vignette’s exclamation point. Barsanti Desmone added additional punch by repurposing a pair of vintage slipper chairs in a peppy chartreuse fabric from Sedallo. “I wanted to invoke the idea that repurposed furniture can look reinvented and live in the present,” Barsanti explains. A simple but overscaled paper lantern embellished with splatter paint adds intimacy—and another layer of artistry—to the scene.

Patrick Mele offered a glimpse of his own creative process with his vignette. In an ode to his workspace, an artful array of objects references his background in fashion and his flair for mixing old and new. “It’s a representation of me at work surrounded by pieces I make in collaboration with different artisans,” says the Greenwich-based interior designer. Viewers will note a pinup board with nods to Rooms with a View founder Albert Hadley and fashion designer Bill Blass, whose New Preston home and New York apartment top Mele’s inspiration list. The ceiling features a historic wallpaper reproduced by Adelphi Paper Hangings and updated in Mele’s own colorway. Mele was the first designer invited by the Sharon Springs, New York, company to collaborate on color. “I chose five of their historic papers to recolor in fresh new colorways. This Adena Pin Ring colorway is a white and toffee combination that feels fresh and classic at the same time.”