Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/162531
In the master bedroom, 1920s eight-panel Coromandel screen. A pair of 1940s French Deco nightstands holds Italian Tizio lamps, through Artemide. Custom Dedar bedding fabric through George Cameron Nash. PAUL SEDILLO INSIDE THE NEST OF DENNIS BRACKEEN B Y B E N In the living area, Dennis Brackeen beneath a 19th-century Italian carved gilt-wood mirror from Antiques on Nineteenth. Kirby & Company custom sofa with Pollack fabric through Donghia. Nineteenth-century carved rosewood chair with mother-of-pearl inlay and Scalamandre Le Tigre cushion. Barbedienne bronze d'or sculpture through Kirby Antiques. Maison Jansen black opaline glass and bronze cocktail table, circa 1940s. Oaxacan black clay skull with 19th-century Tibetan beaded tribal hat. K O U S H . P H O T O G R A P H Y D J A C K T H O M P S O N ennis Brackeen, designer and partner in the home design shop Kirby & Company, is restless, peripatetic and has feverishly decorated a temporary loft with the fervor and mastery most of us would render to more permanent quarters. Actually, by rejiggering space and redecorating this 1,000-square-foot rental in the historic 1910 Nabisco Purse & Co. building (now called City View Lofts) in downtown Houston, Brackeen has effected a dramatic transformation from soul-crushing taupe to riotous colors, patterns and textures hitched with blue-chip antiques and soulful treasures from all sorts of sources he prefers to keep close to his breast. But we pry. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. ON GROWING UP DUSTY. DINING IN DESIGN. The flat, dry, dusty cotton fields of West Texas are a great place to be from — the lack of color, architecture and culture left me so parched that it catapulted me into the world of aesthetics, which now quenches my thirst for all things visual. Specifically, I am from Lamesa, Texas. FOREVER INSPIRED BY … The Greats — Billy Baldwin, David Hicks, Tony Duquette. Contemporaries — Alberto Pinto, Kelly Wearstler, Miles Redd. An amazing pair of period Louis XVI bergères, circa 1780, when I was in my 20s. I enjoyed them for the better part of 10 years. A favorite client at the time coveted them. One evening while entertaining her for dinner and after she topped off my third glass of wine, she handed me a check for an absurd amount of money and begged me to sell them. I did, but I have regretted it ever since. I PERUSE ENDLESSLY. David Hicks Living With Design and David Hicks: A Life of Design; Billy Baldwin Decorates; Parish-Hadley: Sixty Years of American Design. I'VE PREORDERED … Fifth Avenue Style: A Designer's New York Apartment by Howard Slatkin, Mario Buatta: Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration, Luminous Interiors by Brian J. McCarthy and Axel Vervoordt: Living with Light. Triniti is a well-thought-out restaurant with a beautifully balanced aesthetic. THE GOES-EVERYWHERE LAMP . I'm generally not one to be too repetitive. However, I use Christopher Spitzmiller lamps in almost all of my projects. THE HUE I'M MAD FOR. Although my favorite color hues change almost daily, I am mad about a deep inky blue-green color that I recently used for an entire living