Veranda, November 2011: "Master Class: Tricks of the Trade"
"'It was the best of both worlds,' says designer Richard Mishaan about the site of this year's annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House: a landmark neo-Federalist mansion on New York's Upper East Side. 'I couldn't remove the crown moldings or the eighteenth-century English gilt mirrors, but they were so spectacular I didn't want to.' Instead, he filled the grand twenty-by-forty-foot-space with big, powerful furnishings from across the centuries that could hold their own against the architecture-- and not be swallowed by the scale. 'Commanding pieces that are visually striking, no matter the period, whether a chair or an artwork, impart strength,' he explains. He is equally sanguine about mixing metals: Gold and silver accents glimmer on chairs and throw pillows, and gleam against lacquer, creating new layers of intrigue. The 'serendipity of life' does the rest: 'You live with a room, tweak it-- and eventually everything finds its place."
Veranda, November 2011
