Issue Date: May 16, 2004

NOSTALGIA

Retro rooms

Take a cue from TV: Incorporate designs from old shows into your own home to create a swank pad.

By Laura Shin

Sorry, Austin Powers: The 1960s are over (again). Movie remakes of shows like "Starsky & Hutch" have packed theaters, and next year "The Dukes of Hazzard" will stoke our nostalgia for bad cutoffs and feathered hair. So it's time to accept the new definition of "retro": the '70s and '80s.

So far, it's the era's television shows that seem to have the most pop-culture appeal. But you don't need reruns on Nick at Nite to bring that nostalgia into your living room. You can surround yourself with Carol Brady's bright orange kitchen table and Mary Tyler Moore's shag carpet, while keeping your home up to date. Reviving décor from that era is the design trend of the moment, says hot L.A. interior designer Kelly Wearstler, who's known for boldly crossing eras and cultures.

"A lot of people are mixing items from the '70s with neoclassical things [from the late 1700s and early 1800s]," says the West Hollywood-based Wearstler, who recently placed a 1980s zebra-striped rug in front of an antique fireplace. She's used what she calls "vintage" (her term for "retro") items in designing swank southern California hotels, such as the Avalon, the Viceroy and Maison 140, as well as the pad of Starsky himself, actor Ben Stiller. Most important, she says, using older pieces -- even of the '70s and '80s variety -- can be fiscally smart: "A vintage item is an investment, like a piece of art."

We asked Wearstler, who just published "Modern Glamour: The Art of Unexpected Style" (HarperCollins, $39.95), to put her trained eye to the sets of some favorite '70s and '80s shows and reveal how she'd crib their fun, funky items to use in a modern room.

Cop a new look with contrast
The Angels' office mixes and matches elements from old and new, East and West, much as Wearstler does. "See all the traditional moldings? And then you have a modern desk and chairs, and an old figurine," she says of the statue in the left corner. She created a similar effect in a Maison 140 guest room but with a brighter backdrop. To update Bosley's digs, she would paint the wall dark gray and the moldings a French white: "You'd get a lot of depth of field, and it would layer the room -- make it feel sexy."

Paneling, paneling, paneling!
Even the best vintage ideas need a little updating. The Bradys were "right on" with the geometric wood paneling above their famous stairway, Wearstler says, but keeping it all one color today might be too '70s. When she re-created the effect in the Viceroy Hotel, she modernized the look by swapping the wood for mirrors of all shapes and sizes -- antique and new, horizontal and vertical, dark- and light-framed -- for a stunning but not overly Brady look.

Make it hip, after all
Wearstler says certain pieces are the "white shirts" of furniture, because they transition well into many styles of rooms. One of her favorites is the hourglass-shaped table in Mary's back sitting area, called a Saarinen table, which also traverses the decades. Wearstler used the simple, elegant tables throughout the Avalon Hotel pool house. Mary serves champagne on a Parsons table, which is having a comeback of its own, thanks in part to Ikea.

Entertaining in mod style
Here, the living room of Mary's colleague Murray gave our trendsetting design maven some new inspiration. The cube tables have "a lot of texture and personality," Wearstler says. "I haven't seen anything like that. If you entertain, someone could move one cube and put a drink on it. It's more versatile, and it creates more interest in the room." Wearstler can imagine the funky cubes in front of a modern couch in a casual family room. She also liked the matte frames on the drawings on the back wall. "It depends on the art," she says, "but they can make a piece look more important."

Deluxe apartment in the sky
Another plus about vintage furniture is that you can shop by shape; the outside can be revamped with new fabric, a new finish or new paint. "You don't want it looking like you walked into your grandmother's house," Wearstler says. She likes George and Louise's chair, but "I'd probably re-cover it in a solid, because it's very sculptural," she says. "It makes a statement on its own -- without the striped fabric." She'd use the chair in a small room; with its open bottom, it seems to take up less space.