New Book Gives Rattan Furniture its Glorious Due

A contemporary London sitting room with chairs by the 20th century decorator Renzo Mongiardino, often credited with popularizing rattan furniture for indoor use

I love vintage rattan furniture so much that I once toyed with the idea of opening a store in lower Manhattan, back when stores were a good idea, and calling it Bamboozled. That would have been a misnomer, since bamboo is a different plant, rigid and dense, that grows in divided sections, whereas rattan — from the Malay word rotan and native to Malasia and the Phillippines — is a plant fiber that is hollow and bendable and lends itself much more easily to furniture construction. Rattan is not entirely synonymous with wicker either, wicker being a broader term for craft of woven furniture, often but not always made of fibers from the pliable rattan plant.

Bamboozled was still a great name for a store. File that one away in great ideas that never came to pass. But I was serious about the concept. Round about 1976, my wasband and I drove to Florida and spent a couple of weeks going up and down the secondhand furniture stores and thrift shops of Dixie Highway, which was a rich trove of rattan furniture. Rattan was always a popular choice for subtropical locales, from the days of the British raj in India to the open verandahs of the Caribbean.

Much of what we were drawn to in Florida was Art Deco-style, like the then-unrenovated hotels along Miami’s South Beach, where we also spent time among elderly folk in aluminum folding chairs who didn’t seem to notice the peach-colored mirrors etched with flamingos in the lobbies of the hotels in which they lived (and which are now, of course, boutique hotels thankfully saved from destruction and populated by a whole different group of people).

We filled up a U-Haul and drove back to New York, where we may have gone straight to a store on Hudson Street called Secondhand Rose. The proprietor, Suzanne Lipschitz, took one look at the contents of our trailer and bought most of our haul for what we thought was a very good price (laughable now, of course). We had enough to furnish our Tribeca loft with rattan sectional pieces, including a “pretzel” sofa and chair, which might well have been by the designer Paul Frankl (or might not).

At any rate, with this history, I was very pleased to recently get a review copy of the first comprehensive book about vintage rattan furniture in decades, below.

Rattan: A World of Elegance and Charm, just published by Rizzoli, was written by Lulu Lytle, a woman after my own heart, who took her fascination with rattan furniture all the way to the top of the British furniture industry, founding a company called Soane Britain that manufactures rattan using traditional hand techniques. Lytle even purchased the last remaining rattan workshop in Leicestershire, England and employs 15 people there, some of them older people engaged in passing down the craft through an apprenticeship program.

The book, as I wrote in my review for Introspective, the online magazine of 1stDibs.com, is a triumph of photo research, showing the evolution of rattan’s use from Victorian times through the modernist era and into the glamorous 1960s and ’70s, when it caught on with decorators and movie stars from Hollywood to Milan. Lots more great photos in the review and, of course, in the book itself.

This is one coffee table book that will remain on my coffee table for a long time.

Rattan often made appearances in Impressionist paintings

Girls in a ‘Robin Hood’ chair made by Dryad, a rattan workshop founded in 1907 in Leicester, England

The British Royal fam on the grounds of Windsor Castle, 1946

The Paris winter garden of Madeleine Castaing, one of the 20th century’s renowned decorators

The versatile material is still very much in use today, even by IKEA

American interior designer Celerie Kemble made prodigious use of rattan for a resort in the Dominican Republic

Independence Day Porch Makeover

THE 4th OF JULY found me on Shelter Island, chillin’ in 100 degree heat at my friend Debre’s extraordinary Carpenter Gothic farmhouse.

Somewhere between the Jamesport Vineyards sauvignon blanc and the Wolffer Estate rose (we like to support our local wineries), we decided to re-arrange furniture. We were sitting on the wraparound screened porch, which Debre added, along with new bathrooms and many other upgrades, since buying the house about three years ago.

There was no shortage of furniture to re-arrange. Debre is an avid yard-saler, and the porch — a U shape, 8-10′ wide around three sides of the house — is well stocked with vintage wicker sofas and chairs, a sectional rattan set, and various occasional tables. Our re-decorating frenzy began because there was a carved wood 19th century mantelpiece, originally out of a house in Harlem, behind one of the wicker sofas. Only I never knew that, since it had been hidden under a dusty plastic drop cloth since my first visit to the house over a year ago.

We pulled the plastic off so that I could see the mantelpiece, and discussed various possible placements for it. We decided there really isn’t any place for it in the house, style- or space-wise (the mantel is for sale, therefore; e-mail caramia447[at]gmail[dot]com for more pics and details.)

Then we started moving stuff around for the hell of it, switching out some of the wicker, top, for more modern rattan, below, in one corner of the porch, then styling it up with fronds cut from a stand of bamboo in the yard.

It’s not really a matter of ‘before’ and ‘after’ — just different. We both have interior design backgrounds, and this sort of thing is our idea of fun. Debre’s three cats seem to like the results, too.

To see still more pictures of Debre’s house (in addition to the link at the top of this post), go here.

Shoestring Summer Decorating

I LOVE VINTAGE RATTAN FURNITURE so much, I once thought of opening a store devoted to it and calling it Bamboozled. I didn’t, for many reasons, but I’m still a sucker for the stuff. It’s sturdy, stylish, and cheap. (Rattan is not the same as bamboo — it doesn’t have divisions — so the store’s name would have been a misnomer anyway).

The problem is that the vintage rattan furniture you find at yard sales and thrift shops rarely has cushions. So my weakness for it often results in my buying something for a pittance that I then discover costs $1,800 to custom-upholster — like the 1970s Ficks Reed set I found on the street in Brooklyn, which now reposes, cushion-less, in my basement.

I’m very happy with the 1930s stick rattan sofa, above. It was in this house when I bought it, dark green. I painted it white and got cushions from Restoration Hardware that fit perfectly. (The seat cushions are actually floor cushions and not very cushy, but they fit.) It’s on the porch now, along with two wicker chairs and two wicker tables, bought for $5 each at a yard sale (cushions from Home Depot). My latest additions are two butterfly chairs with covers from Urban Outfitters in NYC, the only place I know to get them — fun ones, too (they have a great cabbage-rose pattern, but the graphic blue & white is more beach house).

Moving the stick rattan sofa to the porch left a gap in my living room that needed filling. Well, this morning I went to a nearby yard sale at 9AM and found….another vintage rattan sofa with no cushions, top. It’s a three-piece sectional with nice lines. Hard to pinpoint the era — possibly ’60s or ’70s. Anyway, it was $50 and I saw it would fit the space perfectly. Though mindful of the cushion problem, I snapped it up and brought it home.

Now it happens that I also have, sitting around in boxes from Crate & Barrel, four striped 20″ square floor cushions which I ordered on sale recently for these metal lounge chairs, below (I have four of them, found last summer near a dumpster in Napeague):

The Crate & Barrel cushions didn’t fit the metal chairs well; they were a couple of inches too small. It seems that furniture dimensions have changed a lot in the past 30, 40 years. Very rarely do the cushions sold by today’s catalogue companies match up with vintage pieces. I was thinking of sending them back, but now it appears I don’t have to.

I set my new sofa under the window where I envisioned it and tried three cushions. Too small. But then I tried all four cushions on the three sections. By jamming them in a bit (and cable-tying the three sections together for stability), I made it work. Keepers!

I still need back cushions, but that can be finessed.

Along with my $200 classic picnic table from Agway, below, which I love — it’s heavy enough not to wobble on my wood-chip “patio,” and surprisingly not uncomfortable — I’m ready for summer entertaining. Now all I need are a grill and some guests.

HAMPTONS VOYEUR: Quintessential Cottage in Sag Harbor

WHEN I FIRST SAW Phyllis Landi’s cedar-shingled cottage on a curving half-acre waterfront lot not far from the ridiculously charming village of Sag Harbor, I thought I’d found my dream house. Of course, Phyllis, a freelance TV producer, lives there, and has no intention of moving.

But this house has it all, in my book: location cubed, and the warmth that comes only with age (it was built in 1908). And, like all my favorite houses, it’s quirky: the house, now around 750 square feet, was once twice the size. Owned by two sisters, it was cut in half at some point, and the other half moved down the road a piece.

Phyllis, who bought the cottage in the early ’80s, used it for many years as a weekend place, and now lives there full time, did all the right things. She put on an addition for a kitchen and breakfast nook, opened a wall between the two main rooms to create one expansive living/dining area , and put French doors on the back, bringing in light and leading to a deck that must be glorious in warm weather.

Yes, it’s tiny, but perfect for a woman and her 3-month-old golden Lab puppy, Wilson (there’s one bedroom in the attic loft, and a daybed for guests in the sunroom, above).

It helps that Phyllis has a confident hand with decorating. She painted dark paneled walls and woodwork mostly Linen White (she painted right over the panels in the living room, below, and added wainscotting up to chair rail height in the dining room). She stuck to a neutral palette to keep things serene and uncluttered. Most of the furnishings have a 1930s-’50s aesthetic.

The main pieces are a ‘pretzel’ rattan sofa and chairs in the living room, which came from Secondhand Rose in New York; a blond wood Heywood-Wakefield dining table, hutch, and console, below; Eames chairs in the same pale wood; a shag wool rug and George Nelson daybed from Design Within Reach.

The kitchen has a classic cottage look, all white with pieces of collectible art pottery and Fiestaware providing splashes of aqua and green.

In the attic bedroom, Phyllis built a window seat with storage beneath.

After visiting Phyllis for the first time, I decided I’d move a mountain to get a place like hers. Later, when I found out what it was worth (well upwards of a million), I realized I’d have to move an entire mountain range, which is beyond my capabilities. So I went back to my own cottage in the woods, a tad disappointed, but delighted that such a place even exists.

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A giant shout-out to Carrie of Brick City Love, who blogs about the ongoing renovation of her Newark, NJ, rowhouse, for her patient tutuorial in uploading pictures to WordPress from Flickr. She has saved me untold hours of time and aggravation. THANK YOU CARRIE!!

Adventures in Cottage Living

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS RECENTLY in my humble East Hampton cottage.

I’ve managed to turn a drab 1930s stick rattan sofa, above, with no cushions, into comfortable seating for my screened porch. All it took was three days wielding a paintbrush (this thing has a LOT of surface area and needed priming), while listening to songs I didn’t even know I had on my iPod. That, plus $400 worth of cushions on sale from the Restoration Hardware catalogue have in turn transformed the porch into a second living room. I’m sitting there as I type this, feeling pleased with myself.

But that’s nothing compared with the fact that today, after three months of living without one (inconceivable, I know), I finally had a proper refrigerator delivered. It’s a stainless Frigidaire, and I like it. It’s not the blue Smeg of my dreams, but it’s not bad-looking — exceedingly plain. It’s fairly quiet (I would prefer complete silence, but this is as close as I’m gonna get), and it’s the right size for the space, not a monster.

For almost three months — after buying and quickly returning to Sears a cheapo fridge that drove me crazy with its grunts and groans — I’ve been living with an Igloo cooler and a fridge the size of a hotel mini-bar, with a freezer just big enough for a can of lemonade. I was really tired of all my fresh Long Island farmstand produce falling on the floor each time I opened the door.

I didn’t want to do the Sears/PC Richard route, so two weeks ago, I went to Bob Stevens Appliances, a real appliance store, located in the airport at Westhampton Beach (a safe distance from the runway). I felt I needed to see the things in situ, so I wouldn’t make a second refrigerator mistake, and it appears I have not. Now my vegetables and bottles of Long Island Summer Ale look lost in the depths of 18 cubic feet. I see a trip to the Bridgehampton King Kullen in my future.

I still want the blue, though, so my plan is to paint the lower kitchen cabinets Benjamin Moore’s Sailor Sea Blue, or something like it. This painting thing, once you get in the rhythm, ain’t so bad.

Oh, and the cellar is nearly cleared out of the previous owner’s stuff. Just a few more trips to the dump, and then it will be time to start filling it up with my own stuff.

Deer count, last 24 hours: 4 (a mother and two fawns yesterday, and a really bold one today who came within a few feet of my back door – eyeing the impatiens, I’ll bet).