Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1507768
THE INTERIOR DESIGNER, WHO RECENTLY RELOCATED TO HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK, IS UNATTACHED TO OBJECTS, FANTASIZES ABOUT OWNING A HAT SHOP, AND HAS NEVER READ A BOOK TWICE. BY FANNY SINGER PORTRAIT BY LAURE JOLIET 15 QUESTIONS FOR... Favorite project you've ever worked on? Hotel Covell in LA will always be very dear to me. Dustin Lancaster, the owner of Eastside Establishments, was so incredibly trusting and really let me explore ideas without much of a filter. I was able to individualize each suite, so that each space was its own playground for me. Something that a lot of people overlook but that in your opinion is integral to the making of a home? That a house should be a reflection of you, that it's for no one else but you, so you should let your freak flag fly and be brave in your home. Place you've visited that's had an outsized impact on your life and work? This is maybe more broad than you want to hear, but traveling, period. We were between New York and Paris when I was growing up because my dad [modern artist Robert Breer] spent a decade there after WWII (can you imagine Paris in the 1950s?! What a time to be alive!), so I was lucky enough to be dragged around when I was a kid. My dad was showing his films around Europe and Asia, and I think seeing how ornate Vienna is, and how refined and restrained Japan is, gave me a reverence for history and also the freedom to experiment across a broad visual spectrum. How did growing up with an artist father guide the direction of your career? It's impossible to isolate who I am without him, but I think he taught me to be a good observer. He would sit and watch the fish in the pond for hours, contemplating shape, form, space, and light. He also imparted a healthy dose of irreverence, which I think gave me the confi- dence to create without being so self-conscious in relation to what other folks are doing. The contents of your proverbial "memory box"—in other words, the things you treasure most that you'd grab in the event of a fire? Being in the object business, I'm oddly not very attached to objects. I get the most joy from finding treasures and making them, not owning them. I would probably grab my pop's paintings, a pair of stools Dan John Anderson made for my wedding, and some scrapbooks I've made for the kids. You recently moved from Los Angeles to Upstate New York. What prompted it? Well, we're only two months in, but I've been noticing that the big sky and rolling hills of the Hudson Valley are giving my brain space to dream. I'm not sure if it's a forever move, but it feels like the medicine I needed. Favorite city and why? Paris, forever. It's small but big, serious but not, beautiful but dirty, old but new. What features in the design of a restaurant do you think most affect your experience of a meal? Lighting is make-or-break for a restaurant. And beyond that, even just the temperature of the light bulb, the provenance and material, immediately tell me if the food will be legit. I know food and design aren't exactly the same language, but they need to work in harmony. SALLY BREER SALLY Robert Breer, Time Out, 1953 116 BAL HARBOUR