Another One Bites the Dust

HAVE YOU HEARD? Metropolitan Home, one of the few American interior design magazines left standing, is ceasing to publish as of its December issue. Hachette Filippachi, the publisher, has decided to put all its shelter magazine eggs in the Elle Decor basket.

This has particularly sad resonance for me, as I’ve been writing for that magazine since its very first issue in April 1981, and have been a contributing editor since the early ’90s. I loved working with its editors, who are uncommonly nice people across the board. And of course my personal income has just taken a shot.

It’s a shocker and a disappointment. While not everything in every issue appealed to me, I know how dedicated the Met Home editors were to finding the most stylish projects around and pulling each issue together into a cohesive, top-quality package.

I heard the news yesterday afternoon, ironically, while standing on the corner of Columbus Avenue and 86th Street with Carl D’Aquino, the interior designer. He and I had just come out of a jewel box of a 550-square-foot penthouse apartment he designed, which I was going to write about for the March issue, now not to be. Carl’s phone rang; it was his PR rep bearing the bad news.

Let’s see…H&G, Cottage Living, Country Living, Domino, O at Home, and now Met Home. All gone.

It’s a damn shame, is it not?

What Glamour Is

NOBODY DOES IT like Metropolitan Home. I say this not because I’ve been writing for the magazine since 1981, but because — though it’s known mainly for a certain sleek, high-end modernity — it is also capable of forays into the avant garde, the eco-chic, the rustic and the bohemian (sometimes all in one project). ‘Mix it up’ is Met Home‘s motto, and it sure keeps us readers on our toes.

Met Home, edited by the same small group of people almost from the beginning, is always on top of trends, so when Donna Warner, the longtime Editor in Chief, decides it’s time for “drama queen staircases, elegant draperies, sexy chandeliers, Wicked Queen mirrors, and soothing daybeds,” you better believe it.

Below, Jonathan Adler’s Palm Beach home mixes vintage and new, plastics and marble, neutrals and brights

Glamour: Making it Modern is the newest coffee-table book from Met Home’s senior design team, written by Features Director Michael Lassell. More than 200 photos of 125 projects by some of the magazine’s favorite designers (and mine), including Benjamin Noriega-Oritz, Amy Lau, Celerie Kemble, and Jonathan Adler, employ principles that define this thing called glamour as it stands in 2009:

• oversized objects rather than little bitty ones
• luster, polish, shine and sheen, applied with restraint
• antiques and vintage alongside modern
• Asian influence on Western interiors
• the use of multiples (framed images, a pottery collection) to make a whole more than the sum of its parts

Below, designer Shamir Shah transformed a New York City apartment foyer into something uniquely glamorous with a ceiling made of 31 rice-paper lanterns

Some projects are more accessible than others, but all are inspiring. Some of the ideas in the book, like putting a chaise or lounge chair in the bathroom, as one designer suggests, don’t cost a thing.

Below, Nisi Berryman, owner of Miami’s NIBA Home, went all-out glam in her fuchsia-colored bedroom with a Baroque mirror, vintage vanity, and furry pillow on an acrylic chair