Interiors by Sandra Nunnerley published by PowerHouse Books
Sandra Nunnerley once had a penguin-this is just one hint of the New Zealand-born, New York-based interior designer's fascinating life that's explored in her first book, Interiors (PowerHouse Books, $70). With 239 pages and 200 photographs and illustrations, Nunnerley takes the reader on a richly detailed journey into the story behind her award-wining interiors. From her foray into the world of design (family friends invited her to join a team designing a Manhattan townhouse) to the historical architecture that has influenced her (Dublin's Trinity College).
Sandra Nunnerley.
Thematically organized into 10 chapters, the tomeaddresses the designer's understanding and portrayal of, as titled, Serenity, Subtlety, Individuality, Refinement, and Glamour, among others. In Serenity, Nunnerley describes how a life-changing trip to Tebet helps her inject this sense into her projects.
Sandra Nunnerley paired an alabaster light fixture with a Regency pedestal table at a house in Maryland.
The chapter devoted to Glamour focuses on a luxurious duplex apartment in New York's Sherry-Netherland hotel. "It once belonged to Cecil Beaton and Jack Warner and my clients bought it for a pied--terre," Nunnerley says. "She wanted to feel like Ginger Rogers coming down the staircase."
Drawing the reader deeper into the story are the eclectic mix of what Nunnerley calls "inspirational" images depicting color, texture, and patterns that are then reflected in her interiors. The rings of sand in a Japanese Zen garden emerge in the organic shapes in a dining room. Carol Lombard lounging on a paneled sofa leads to a similarly paneled silver-gray mohair banquette.
Morton Bartlett photographs C. 1955 hang in the entryway of Sandra Nunnerley's New York apartment. The Louis XIV beech wood table is populated by 19th-century gilt objects.
"I didn't want to do just another interior design book with one project after another," the designer explains. "I wanted a book that also showed the thought and inspiration behind the projects-where they come from. Interiors talks about where I have lived and traveled all over the world and all the different things I have been exposed to-from my architectural world to my art world background. How all that comes together and how one experiences these things are what formulate a design philosophy."
