Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Ferguson & Shamamian


The Living Room of a renovated house in Palm Beach, FL decorated by Bunny Williams features a custom console by John Tackett Design to the left of the pair of doors.  Photo from Bunny Williams' Point of View. 
 There is a wonderful new book just out titled New Traditional Architecture:  Ferguson & Shamamian Architects featuring exceptional houses and apartments by my friends Mark Ferguson and Oscar Shamamian.  We worked together at Parish-Hadley Associates in New York City before opening our own offices. 

A new house in Chagrin Falls, OH is featured on the cover.
 My firm, John Tackett Design, is sometimes asked to consult and make contributions to a project that already has a primary architect and interior designer.  Such was the case for the renovation of a wonderful old Mediterranean style house in Palm Beach;  the Living Room is pictured above.  I designed several custom made pieces of furniture for this project decorated by Bunny Williams with the architectural improvements by Ferguson & Shamamian.  Another view of this room and others from the same project are featured in the new book.

A new house in Westport, CT by Ferguson & Shamamian.
The new book is really the best of its kind, often showing first floor plans and detail drawings in addition to color photos.  The Devoted Classicist recommends this book to all who appreciate high style tradtional residences.

18 comments:

  1. Hello:
    What a very attractive drawing room and we especially like your console.

    It is rumoured in the bazaars that Parish-Hadley Associates were approached by the Duke and Duchess of York to design some of the interiors of their former home. However, the project was squashed as it was felt that such a contract could not be seen to go to American designers instead of their British counterparts.

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  2. I saw this the other day and didn't have time to preview it. Thanks for the recommendation - can't wait to spend some time pouring over the pages.

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  3. Helen, you will enjoy the furnishings, too. Mark, Oscar, and I have worked with many of the same interior designers and agree that a tasteful decor adds immeasurably to the appreciation of the architecture. It is hard to have a truly successful final product if the quality of interior design does not measure up to the architecture, and vice versa.

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  4. "make contributions to a project that already has a primary architect and interior designer"

    I like the idea that designers need designers.

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  5. Terry, most projects in the $10+ million range have a team of specialists to cover the various aspects to insure a high quality within a workable time frame.

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  6. John, I have this crazy idea (apparently a very wrong idea) that designers like doctors and lawyers perhaps shouldn't be their own clients.

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  7. Jane and Lance, yes the Duke and Duchess of York were Parish-Hadley clients. The Duchess had seen and fell in love with a P-H project in Greenwich, Connecticut. It is a charming country house that had been created from a 1903 barn-like stone structure which had been a six car garage with chauffeur's quarters above. (The main house had burned). Mrs Parish was horrified with the approved drawings of the new house being built in Windsor Great Park; it later was the subject of criticism in the tabloid press. But the duchess had at least two meetings in the P-H office before complaints brought pressure from the Sovereign (who was paying) to employ British talent instead.

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  8. I would like to get that book! Problem living in a small Finnish town is that we do not have many bookstores selling architectural books. Indeed a great shame!

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  9. Thanks for drawing our attention to this book.
    For years I've held onto a copy of The Classicist in which Mark Ferguson
    gave an interview along with Bunny Williams, discussing the architectural
    design of Peter and Leni May's house in Connecticut. Very impressive, those
    interviews~ and very fortunate are the clients of such skilled and articulate
    architects.

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  10. The Mays are great patrons of classical architecture. I did their NYC apartment, to be featured in a future post.

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  11. Thanks, Jacyln. I enjoyed learning of clos-ette too.

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  12. In the end, did you get to write that article on your improvements to the interiors?

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    1. Sorry, I am not following. But the back-log is building, so the answer is probably not.

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    2. Oh, dear! This wasn't supposed to be here, in these comments: I was commenting on your article about Montsorrel!

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  13. What do you think of the house they built for Stephen Schwarzman in Palm Beach?

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    1. Although I have seen photos of the Hutton residence designed by Maurice Fatio, I am not familiar with the house that replaced it. Thank you for commenting.

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    2. Thank you for your blog.

      I wonder if the house is in the book.

      You can see it here.

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    3. I am a big fan of tropical Regency. I am separated at the moment from my office library, so I cannot say for sure about it being in the F & S book. That is a great aerial shot, though; thanks.

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