There’s a tragic quality to the growing number of tear downs in my Connecticut neighborhood. New homes are quickly erected, blocks of white structures accented with black steel-framed windows. The interiors are so new Wipe-Its must be readily available to remove damaging smudge prints. The thought of living in such a home can be alluring in that wearing new clothes kind of sensation. However I have too many things to ever make such a home work, from past down belongings to sentimental acquisitions, parting with them would be a breach in loyalty. This is why I return to the sensibility of my Parisian family. Their style is not influenced by Pinterest boards but what is rich in quality, provenance, and furnishings that can’t be described in a paragraph of copy beneath a shopping cart icon.
Every space in my cousin’s Paris home spotlights an important assembly of fine pieces, as seen from this view to the office.
A Parisian home not only reveals the current dweller but you have a sense of the storied lives of past residents. They were not ad executives slamming back martinis on the 7:40 p.m. bar car to Greenwich. Artists, nobility, professors, statesman. Their city is one of the most visual, inspiring places in the world that it’s vital to preserve its qualities. Thus the influences are as layered as its history.
My cousin Regis is enchanted by past artifacts, a collector of antiquities and Old Masters, along with collections as esoteric as 18th century shoe buckles and harpsichords. He’s an avid entertainer, where it’s not uncommon for him to host a concert in his home. Entertaining is another form of expression, like the way he will set a table with fully bloomed flowers, candelabras with tapers burned to the wick, and a crystal bowl of potato chips.
His home is overwhelming, I’d personally be in a bit of a bother if I misplaced my ear buds, but it is spectacular from its assemblage of rooms that rival velvet lined rooms in a museum. My niece called it the home of a hoarder of important things. When you become seduced by art, the acquisition is a stimulation that you can’t live without and there will be place for it.
