Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/536148
BY REBECCA SHERMAN. ART DIRECTION MICHELLE AVIÑA. PHOTOGRAPHY JENNY ANTILL CLIFTON. HAIR AND MAKEUP TONYA RINER. A PUNK ROCKER PUSHING 80, NOT ONLY DOES BARBARA HILL LOOK YOUNG AND HIP, BUT HER KIRBY-AREA HOME ROCKS WITH HER OWN BRAND OF VIBRANT MINIMALISM Woman on the EDGE To describe Barbara Hill as an interior designer is missing the point. Don't get me wrong — she has all the hallmarks of being an extremely talented, successful one. With clients in Houston, Mexico, Atlanta and Minneapolis, she has most recently finished a home in Bayou Bend Towers on Westcott at Memorial Drive. She's been published with enviable frequency, including The New York Times, Taschen's Interiors Now and Dwell magazine, which has included her work in 11 issues. Celebrity designer Nate Berkus was so enamored with one of Hill's Marfa houses — converted from a former 1930s dance hall — that he flew her out to New York City four years ago to talk about it on his show. Twenty-four pages in Berkus' 2012 book, The Things That Matter, are devoted to Hill and the one-room Marfa house, which he describes as "beautifully organized" and "poetic." With flaming red hair and a penchant for expensive, flamboyant shoes, the 78-year-old Hill is as much performance artist as decorator, more iconoclast than trendsetter. The recently updated 860-square-foot Upper Kirby studio in the '60s-era Regency House high-rise where she's lived for the past 10 years typifies her unconventional style. There's an Italian Ingo Maurer chandelier in the bath and, in the main living area, a Burton snowboard with Andy Warhol's The Last Supper painted on it, from a Marfa art gallery. A madcap photograph of a Marfa resident dressed in a suit and boots while wielding a pair of comically oversized pistols hangs over her Ligne Roset platform bed. Here, the rough underbelly is preferred to the polished surface. The bathtub and sink, designed to be set into finished enclosures, were left unfinished, exposing their bare exteriors. Walls of zinc sheeting traditionally used for roofing surround the tub area. As for square footage, the more contained, the better. "It's perfect. I could even go smaller," she says. "I can hop around inside here pretty easily. It's wonderful, easy living." The space was a typical '60s condo with Sheetrock walls and eight-foot ceilings when Hill bought it. She took everything down to the bones, revealing ductwork and concrete. The ceilings suddenly became tall, and the room opened up. "Once I ripped everything out, and I saw the beauty of the natural materials, I wanted to leave it," she says. "I just love looking at these imperfect ceilings, which are perfect in their own way." She has filled the rustic, industrial sheath with beautifully crafted furnishings, both modern and antique, such as a pair of Italianate gilt chairs from Antiques on Dunlavy (now Antiques & Interiors at the Pavilion); original Platner and Bertoia chairs she's owned for years; a new Ligne Roset sofa; and a rare, old metal French postal sorting table that was cut down for use as a coffee table, from Kuhl-Linscomb. The contrasts produce an almost spartan aesthetic that is elegant in its simplicity and use of space. "My rooms are minimal, but there's a romance to them," she says. "I In the living area, the chalkboard bears philosophical phrases. Ligne Roset sofa. Mark Flood lace painting. Coffee table is a vintage French postal sorting table from Kuhl-Linscomb. On the table, vintage Jayne Mansfield water bottle found in New Orleans. Vintage Platner chairs.