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t ra di t iona l
STYLE NOW!
04/ 13
Layers of fabric and
wallpaper energize a
house with many rooms
PATTERN happy
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Interior design by j o h n k n o t t & j o h n F o n da s Interview by D o u g l a s B r en n er Photographs by B j ö r n Wa l l a n d er
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Buoyant spirits from
Down East refresh the
onetime hotel that John
Knott and John Fondas
transformed into their
Maine summer house.
The living room’s vivid
fabrics, all by Knott’s
firm, Quadrille, pack a
playful punch, while
Syrian inlaid chairs and
Chinese ceramic stools
evoke the cosmopolitan
taste of New England
seafarers. Opposite:
China Seas Aqua IV
wallpaper sets off blue
coral, a 19th-century
lobster claw, and a
vintage American marine
relief painting.
The bold geometry of
curtains in Quadrille’s Tashkent and an Adirondack
folding screen anchor the
lively play of China Seas
fabric patterns: Nitik II
trimmed with Pimento on
a pair of vintage armchairs,
New Batik on an Albert
Hadley armchair, and
Aquarias on throw pillows.
Framed whale prints and a
mermaid console add
a salty splash to the mix.
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Sister Parish’s
house in Maine is still here on an island
near yours. Do you feel her spirit looking
over your shoulders?
John Knot t: Definitely. She was the
ringleader of this group of stylish
New Yorkers, guys like Albert Hadley
and Alan Campbell, who spent summers with her in Islesboro communing with the simple life. They created
their own American look. We are continuing that look forward, because we
like its clarity of patterns and colors
and its livability.
John Fondas: Little Cranberry, where
we go from late spring to September, is super simple—a million times
more off the beaten path than Islesboro. You can only get here by boat.
The year-round residents are lobstermen. There’s one little store. No cellphone signal.
JK: Which is the beauty of the place.
We don’t have air-conditioning, heating, or a dishwasher.
JF: You can get 18 people around the
dining table, easily. We do that all the
time. But it’s grilled chicken, vegetables, a salad, and ice cream. That’s it.
JK: It’s a big production just to get the
food out to the island, and then we’re
hand-washing all the plates and
glasses. And everybody’s got to help.
This is really camping out, in a way.
Does the house have a history?
JF: It was built in 1905 as a hotel for
‘rusticators’ from places like Boston
and Philadelphia. It had 19 tiny bedrooms. We combined two of them to
make a dining room and took out partitions upstairs to create slightly bigger spaces. We tried to meticulously
preserve the building, but we took
liberties on the inside to make it comfortable and relaxed. This was a delicious opportunity to play around with
fabrics and wallpapers we deal with
all day long at Quadrille.
You actually hauled all of this out here
on boats?
JK: It renewed our faith in the American work ethic. The contractor
brought every piece of lumber on
barges. Someone at our warehouse
in upstate New York drove a moving
van full of furniture onto the local oil
Dougl as Brenner:
This is a very American mixture
of different furniture styles, family hand-me-downs, and the kind of
China Trade exotica that New England sea captains collected.
JK: Nothing could be more American than painted f loors in a vacation home. Painting dark floors white
moved the house into the sunshine.
Did you also want a clean break from
bold pattern and color?
JF: Believe it or not, the living room
walls started off white. The first thing
we chose was the ikat on the sofa.
Then we put in all these other blueand-white patterns that we loved. The
pimento trim that pulls everything
together was inspired by an antique
wallhanging that we intended to put
up but didn’t use. When we were leaving at the end of the summer, John
said, ‘With all this pattern, the only
logical thing is to add one more.’
That’s how the wallpaper happened.
JK: Because none of the rooms have
much architecture or even moldings,
wallpaper patterns elevate them to
the next level of decorating. The whole
room looks like a wrapped gift.
Are curtains the bow on the present?
JF: A big graphic curtain instantly
gives a room stature. It’s a wow factor.
We used curtains in every bedroom.
The simplest pair of white curtains
creates a sense of luxury and finish
that you can’t get any other way.
If somebody said, ‘Picture a red, white,
and blue room with a George Washington toile and stars and stripes,’ I’d
wince. But your Yankee Doodle Dandy
bedroom is great.
JF: It never occurred to us to ask, ‘Is
this too much pattern in one room?’
It’s second nature.
JK: Friends in the design business
appreciate seeing this. Because decorating is expensive and long term,
many clients are apprehensive about
patterns, especially so many together.
JF: It’s a risk to use 10 or 15 patterns in
a room.
JK: Risky, but we also want the joyful excitement—the happy, jazzy fun
that’s part of what America is about.
JF:
barge, which was a World War II troop
carrier—and it was a lot of furniture,
because we used things from other
houses we’d had. It’s the flotsam and
jetsam of our lives coming together—
the grand recycling that makes old
vacation houses so homey and quirky.
Were you winking at Lewis Carroll—and
your city offices—with the living room’s
riff on a lobster quadrille?
JF: There’s a 1930s surreal-ness and a
Tony Duquette vibe about the lobster
claws. They’re on marble bases that
were faux painted with extra veins, so
they appear real and fake all at once.
JK: It’s a vacation house. You want to
enjoy yourself. Summer is not a time
to be serious.
I get a kick out of the voyeuristic bull’seye mirror over that four-poster’s headboard. And the coconut chandelier.
JK: We have all kinds of things you’d
never expect to see in a Maine island
house. There is an Italian gilt sofa in
the black-and-white guest room, but
you know what? Everyone hangs out
in there and watches TV. It’s a wonderful, casual space.
Above: Restored
windows frame
views of Cadillac
Mountain and
Acadia National
Park that have
barely changed
since Frederic
Church painted
them in 1850. His
canvases inspired
Maine’s first wave
of summer visitors.
Opposite: The
dining room’s
coconut-shell
chandelier, Home
Couture’s paisley
Taj wallpaper, and
soapstone pagodas cast an exotic
spell on a Yankee
crew of antique
Hitchcock chairs.
The resin mirror
is a 20th-century
gem by decorators
Zajac & Callahan.
Produced by Dav id M. Murph y
S t y l ed by Pe t er Fr a nk
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Antique wicker adorns a hall papered in
Quadrille’s Vanderpoel Stripe. Cypress
doors retain original hotel room numbers
and exit signs. Dark floors got a coat of
Benjamin Moore Patio White deck paint
for summery brightness and easy cleaning. Opposite, clockwise from top left:
1. A French copper ship’s lantern. ​2. Old
photos guided Knott’s replacement of lost
deck railings. He designed a new entrance
portico using salvaged columns from
upstate New York. ​3. Knott retrieved a
1970s ikat from his archive for this slipcover. ​4. A 1958 model Chris-Craft on a
table made by a 19th-century sea captain. ​
5. Large-patterned Henriot Floral wallpaper by Quadrille in a cabin-size guest
room. ​6. White-painted wainscoting,
a pedestal sink, and a claw-foot tub give
the master bath a timeless appeal. ​7. A
restrained Shingle Style exterior belies
the exuberance within. ​8. Quadrille’s
Les Indiennes fabric had never been
printed in black until Knott recolored it
to match the stripe in a guest room.
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For Fondas, the white canopy
recalls Early America as well as the
colonial nostalgia of his native Bahamas. This guest room’s Georgian
four-poster is canopied in check
linen with a pom-pom fringe and
dressed with Matouk linens. Hanging a mirror above the headboard,
Knott explains, is a European touch.
Right: Curtains in Home Couture’s
Lorraine flank a bamboo tripod
from Emerson Antiques in Blue Hill,
Maine. The Aesthetic Movement
chair is upholstered in the same
batik pattern used on the walls. A
bird print (“Our low-maintenance
pet,” Knott says) perches in the
19th-century French cage.
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An American Empire four-poster in
the Greek Revival style just clears the
master bedroom ceiling. The bed’s
monumental scale befits the wallpaper,
Quadrille’s Independence Engraving,
depicting George Washington at the
reins of a leopard-drawn chariot;
the design was taken from a 1783 British
printed fabric. Opposite, top: Independence Toile, the same pattern with
a blue ground, covers the daybed next
to a 19th-century English campaign
chest. Opposite, Bot tom: The patriotic
theme sprang from Fondas’s collection
of Washington memorabilia and American flags. Independence Ticking was
used for the curtains. For more details,
see Resources
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