In the parlor, interior designer Anthony Baratta mixed a Victorian balloon-back armchair from his own collection with a Duncan Phyfe-style sofa and a Chippendale-style wing chair to create the main seating area. The lamp, crafted from vintage sewing boxes, and the braided rug are his own designs.
Among the first influencers of high style on the American continent, the residents of Colonial Williamsburg — then the capital of the largest and wealthiest British colony — were known to follow British interior design trends. They imported furnishings from London’s 18th-century star cabinetmakers Thomas Chippendale, Thomas Sheraton and George Hepplewhite, setting the standards for fashionable early-American homeowners.
But it wasn’t until the late 1920s when the Rev. Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin of Bruton Parish Church, aided by Standard Oil heir and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, initiated the restoration of the Colonial capital that Williamsburg became known as the epitome of American traditional style. Their preservation efforts, and the efforts of others working to save Colonial-era homes such as Mount Vernon and Monticello, helped to popularize Colonial Revival-style architecture and home decor. The style was all the rage in 1936 when the first Colonial Williamsburg brand collections were launched to meet consumer demand for reproductions in the colonial style (today’s collections are branded as Williamsburg).
“Like anything, Williamsburg has had to evolve, and I think the brand has done an amazing job of honoring the legacy of the program, while adapting and taking steps forward by developing product that is interpreted by the way we live today,” says Kiri Franco, director of brand and licensing for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “The pieces are oftentimes quite contemporary, actually — I think that many people are surprised by the ‘trend meets tradition’ aesthetic that our licensees like Global Views, Robert Abbey, Capel and many others have created with their lines.”
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The white porcelain urns on the coffee table, part of the Global Views collection, were inspired by neoclassical urns popular in the 18th century.
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Designer Anthony Baratta
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The Palmer House (circa 1750), a Georgian-style property on Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg
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Baratta used Azurite, a milky shade of blue, and Greenhow Vermillion from Benjamin Moore’s Williamsburg Paint Color collection in the foyer.
Elements of Design
According to Liza Gusler, the associate director of Williamsburg Licensing, many of the brand’s new introductions bear little resemblance to the items that inspired them or to the traditional reproductions in the collections. Instead, they’re inspired by elements of design discovered in Williamsburg’s extensive archives housing more than 70,000 fabrics, furniture, ceramics, rare books and more.
“Every time we step into the museum archives with the curators, there is a giddy sense of discovery,” says Jillian Pyle, senior brand designer for the Williamsburg collections. “What will we find on this visit that could serve as inspiration for new product? … Some of the most creative interpretations come from finding interesting graphics, shapes or details that could be turned into something new. For this, we’ll dive into the archives with curators of metals, ceramics, rare books and furniture, or simply take a walk through the historic area.”
“Williamsburg has had to evolve. … I think the brand has done an amazing job of honoring the legacy of the program.” —Kiri Franco, director of brand and licensing for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
New offerings by licensee Global Views are virtually unrecognizable as a Williamsburg brand. The statement-making Shoe Buckle Mirror, for example, was inspired by the design of an 18th-century shoe buckle found in the archives. Once worn to fasten elegant Moroccan leather and brocade footwear, the inspiration piece is similar to the buckles sold by James Craig’s Williamsburg silversmith shop from 1770 to 1790.
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The bedding in the guest room was inspired by an 18-century embroidery.
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A view of the guest room and one of Baratta’s antique chairs upholstered in an updated plaid.
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Baratta mixed blue-and-white wares from a variety of Williamsburg collections in the dining room.
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The table is set with Caskata’s Blue Marble dinnerware, a bold abstract inspired by a book of antique hand-marbled endpapers.
Inaugural Designer in Residence
Last year, Williamsburg introduced its first Designer in Residence, inviting New York designer Anthony Baratta to reimagine the interior of an original 18th-century home on Duke of Gloucester Street as a contemporary home in his signature eclectic, all-American style.
“When we met designer Anthony Baratta at a mutual licensee’s party in 2017, we recognized a kindred spirit in him — he had a real love and appreciation for Colonial Williamsburg, and its design legacy,” Franco says. “As we continued to get to know him, we all realized that there was an amazing opportunity for Anthony to put his stamp on one of our iconic houses, decorating and furnishing it with his fresh take on Americana (for which he is renowned). He is incredible in the way he tells stories through his designs and we are honored to have him as our inaugural Designer in Residence.”
Because of the home’s historic designation, no structural changes were allowed, so the transformation had to be achieved with paint and furnishings. Baratta, who is well known for his maximalist, layered interiors, updated the Palmer House with paint and furnished it with a mix of traditional Williamsburg reproduction furniture and a selection of contemporary Williamsburg products in addition to antiques and art from his personal collection.
“I liked the idea and the influence Colonial Williamsburg has had on interior design since the 1930s,” says Baratta, “and have used traditional furniture all of my life. I have a thing for reproductions. I like them a lot, but it can be challenging to make them look today.”
The designer, who is known for his love of color, chose a palette of historically accurate primary colors of vermilion, blue, yellow and green for the living room, dining room, kitchen and bar areas and applied them with different emphasis in each space. (Fun Fact: The baseboards were painted black, so they appear to recede and push the walls out.) Most importantly, according to Baratta, he wasn’t designing a period-specific show house, but a home to live in.
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Baratta’s brass bed was once owned by the author Gore Vidal.
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A metal sculpture by Global Views inspired by the hands of an 18th-century clock.
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A gallery wall in the master bedroom includes a set of 18th-century William Hogarth prints from the designer’s own collection. The wall under the chair rail was hand painted.
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Baratta chose a Spicher and Company floor cloth, inspired by an applique on a vintage quilt in the archives, for the foyer.
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The designer reimagined an 18th-century broom closet as a bar.
After shopping the Williamsburg warehouses for furniture and accessories, he assembled an eclectic array of traditional furnishings including Chippendale- and Queen Anne-style wing chairs in the living room; the bow- and fiddle-back Windsor chairs and corner cabinet in the dining room; and the Sheraton-style writing table in the master bedroom. Baratta shopped the brand’s newest offerings for accessories and tabletop items. He mixed Caskata’s new Blue Marble dinnerware, which was inspired by some of the exquisite hand-marbled endpapers in the Williamsburg archives, with Mottahedeh’s traditional Imperial Blue dinnerware. In the living room, he grouped sleek, neoclassical style urns with traditional brass candlesticks. He placed a pair of Robert Abbey swing-arm reading lamps in the master bedroom and incorporated an iron sculptural element from Global Views that was inspired by the hands of an 18th-century clock.
Baratta also included a few antique pieces from his personal collection — including a fabulous antique, king-size brass bed he purchased from the estate of writer Gore Vidal that’s too large to fit in his New York City bedroom — and some he found while antiquing in the area. He layered the walls with a mix of contemporary paintings and vintage prints, ship models and dioramas from his personal collections with the reproduction artwork he found in the warehouse.
Although his year as Designer in Residence has ended, Baratta, who actually lived in the Palmer House during the year, plans to return to the Colonial capital for the reopening of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum later this year. “It’s been an amazing experience that I and my friends won’t easily forget,” he says. “It is so lovely here at night when the streets are empty; you would think it’s the 18th century.”
Plans are in the works for a second Designer in Residence, although no date has been set for an announcement. In the meantime, Williamsburg has some creative and interesting collaborations planned for 2020, “Some in categories that you wouldn’t normally expect from us,” Franco says. “It’s been fun to play and explore in some of these areas outside of the traditional home interior space.”
