Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1517954
Rose Tarlow Does it Again F ew design books are as revered as The Private House, Rose Tarlow's 2001 emotional and self-reflective treatise on interiors. Long out of print, The Private House has recently been reissued and updated by Rizzoli, with new photos and an afterword by the author. Both issues of the book include her own enchanting house in Bel Air, which she designed almost entirely from salvaged antique wood and stone from Europe. In the living room, intrusive vines meander between 18th-century French terrace doors, up the plaster walls, and across the ancient, beamed ceiling. In spring, the vines dangle over sofas and chairs, a wispy curtain to be held aside when passing through. The unruly garden indoors may not have caught on as a design trend, but for Tarlow, that's the point. The room is entirely her own. She writes, "There are those who spend lifetimes in houses that have nothing to do with who they really are. They may be perfectly designed, yet if they fail to reflect the personalities of the people who live in them, the essence of intimacy is missing, and this absence is disturbingly visible." Tarlow, who launched her career as an antiquarian, now designs textiles and furniture inspired by antiques for her L.A.- based company and showroom, Melrose House. She's also an influential interior designer whose rooms are often furnished with antiques and finished with old woods, stone, and plaster. Architecture critic Julie V. Iovine, writing for The New York Times, once described Tarlow's interiors as "rooms of haunting luxury packed with enough rarities and idiosyncratic touches to upstage a Zeffirelli opera set." The Private House, Rizzoli, $55, at rizzoli.com. Rebecca Sherman Clockwise from top left: The dining room's antique ceiling beams and stone floors were reclaimed from Europe. A guest bedroom, as seen through an exquisitely carved antique doorway. Vines dangle from the ceiling in Tarlow's Bel Air living room. 64