Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

Perusing the past

New furniture invokes centuries gone by and distant, exotic locales

By Pamela Sherrod
Chicago Tribune

We needed our winged traveling shoes at this fall’s International Home Furnishings Market show.

Not so much for walking as for transporting us to places we’d never been or hadn’t seen for a long time.

Every fall, and again in the spring, about 80,000 buyers, designers and journalists descend on High Point, N.C., to get the first peeks at furniture manufacturers’ introductions.

At the Althorp Living History Collection at the Theodore Alexander showroom we stepped back in time to the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries and saw how those designs could be functional today.

Althorp is the ancestral home of the Spencer family, which has ties to Winston [Spencer] Churchill and the ancestors of George Washington. Today, it’s home to Earl Charles Spencer and his family. But it is perhaps best known as the home where Princess Diana, the earl’s sister, is buried.

We visited the showroom out of curiosity to see the furniture and the latest name added to the trend of coupling furniture with marquee names. We were surprised to see that the sofas — especially the plump, cushioned number at the top of the stairs — were comfy, not stodgy, providing a place to curl up in stocking feet with a good book in your lap.

Wall-size color photographs of various rooms of the Althorp house adorned the showroom, giving the feeling of the presence of the 500-year-old home where the Spencer family has lived since 1508 and which the earl emphasizes is a home, not a museum.

A piece in the collection that stood out because of its character, charm and history was The Washington Chest ($2,910) made of English oak. The real chest belonged to George Washington’s family. At the showroom here, the original stood roped off next to the reproduction, which is so exact that water stains, scratches and nicks appear as if truly the result of time and use.

Prices in the Althorp Living History Collection start from the $2,910 Washington Chest to $7,200 for a walnut bar shaped like the Althorp home to $11,100 for a similar style desk. The collection will be available in the spring.

Traveling stateside

At Pennsylvania House, there was Steve Tyrell’s Southern Roots Collection. The 56-piece cherry collection of indoor and outdoor furniture is inspired by the Grammy Award-winning jazz singer’s memories of growing up in Memphis and New Orleans. Designs in the collection are also reminiscent of pieces found in the plantations of the South’s antebellum period.

The ones that resonated most were Christine’s China ($3,599), inspired by his mother’s dining buffet and named for her. It has sliding doors of Okoume veneer (a pale almost pinkish wood from central Africa) decorated with ribbon grillwork over beveled glass. Other items in the collection include Grandma Bilao’s Mirror ($399), Aunt Vita’s Chest ($1,599) and Kickerillo Dresser ($1,799).

From the South, we went to the Asian-inspired Zen Home Collection at Century Furniture, and the fashionable styles of Oscar de la Renta.

Standouts in these collections were the Zen Home Platform Bed ($5,150 for queen size, $5,785 for king) that is a continuous curve supported on flared feet, and the green chinoiserie Japan chest with hand-painted birds by Oscar de la Renta ($2,240).

At Bernhardt Furniture, the home office additions had the most shine and fashion appeal. In the American Anthology Collection, the Artist Desk ($999), with its hanging leather side panels for storage, stood out. In the Martha Stewart Signature Collection at Bernhardt, the Tides Turn Home Office ($1,600) riffs off the idea of armoires being transformed into offices.

Latin beat

There was a distinct Latin and Mediterranean vibe at Pulaski Furniture with the Casa Cristina Furniture Collection. Pulaski joined with Latin media star and talk-show host Cristina Saralegui to create a 110-piece collection that includes everything from clocks and bedroom furniture to even the bathroom sink. Warm tones, slightly distressed antique finishes, soft curves, motion skirting on dressers and cabinets were design rhythms that picked up Latin and Mediterranean architecture and art themes.

To learn more

You have to wait until spring for these introductions to arrive in stores. But until then, here are sources for finding more information about these collections.

• Althorp Living History Collection by Theodore Alexander. Available at some Marshall Fields stores, or visit www.theodorealexander.com.

• American Anthology and Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt. See Bernhardt Furniture Co.’s Web site at www.bernhardt.com, or call 800-430-6504.

• Casa Cristina Collection at Pulaski Furniture Corp. For stores, visit www.pulaskifurniture.com or call 540-980-7330.

• Century Furniture Industries. Visit the Web site at www.centuryfurniture.com, or call 828-328-1851.

• John Elway Collection for Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. Visit www.bassettfurniture.com or call 276-629-6000.

• National Geographic Home Collection. For information about furniture pieces, visit Lane Home Furnishings at www.lanefurniture.com or call 662-566-7211.