James Sansum
photo by Nelson Hancock
If you could have a second home anywhere, where would you live? Happily, we go to my childhood summer cottage in Port Townsend on Puget Sound. But, if another house were in the offing, I think a liitle bungalow on Boca Grande or a townhouse on Markham Square in London would be just fine.
Tell us about your childhood bedroom? I hated our mid-century, open-plan house in Palo Alto. So, I couldn’t wait for our annual June decamp to Port Townsend, where my little bedroom overlooked the back garden, centered on a century old Golden Plum tree that, according to town lore, was brought as a sapling from China in the late nineteenth century. I slept on an old Louisiana four poster bed that had been my grandfathers and always in my family, kept my clothes in a creaky Classical chest of drawers, did projects on a crazy Eastlake drop front desk with lots of nooks, crannies and secret drawers. I was very much at home.
What’s the first investment piece you ever bought for your house? Well, I bought a monstrous William IV chest of drawers at auction when I was a teenager. It resides in our bedroom in Port Townsend. Not much of an investment, and not much of a return, I imagine, but still holding my clothes quite well. But, I did find, at a Connecticut tag sale, an extraordinarily rare early seventeenth century Italian watercolor of a Lemon by Vincenzo Leonardi, originally part of Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum in Rome and later in the English Royal Collection. I suppose the investment in my education made this find possible. That watercolor is now in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
In the history of design, if you could hire any designer, who would it be? I think I’ve got that covered … Markham Roberts comes highly recommended.
No room is complete without: Something with age, something with texture, something with nuance, something from nature.
People think of me as a dealer but I am really just an addict.
Things you omit from:
A flower arrangement: the clear cylindrical florist vase
An hors d’oeuvre platter: anything droopy
A bar cabinet: NOTHING … sacred space
A song for:
Dinner at home: Ella, Nina, Aretha, repeat …
Working at your desk: Love is Blindness by U2
Going for a run: I Ran by Flock of Seagulls
Biggest Vice? Keeping the best things for myself … and throwing nothing away.
If you were on an Ambien high and internet shopping, what would you buy? All that I can say is … good thing miniature ponies aren’t available at 3 am.
Do your clothes reflect your design sensibility, if so, how? In my dreams: Everything Velvet. In reality: Age inappropriate college redux … White Oxfords, Levi’s Cords, New Balance Sneakers.
Who is your star crush? Always: Harrison Ford in early Indiana Jones. At the moment: The guy who plays Ben Tallmadge on Turn, which we are currently powering through. He looks like a handsome eighteenth century American portrait.
What is the one thing you would never decorate your home with, but don’t detest when you see others do it? A minimalist aesthetic.
If there were a fire, and you could only keep one design book, what would it be? This makes me nervous … a Sophie’s Choice situation. Well, first of all, knock on wood to avoid this scenario … and, please note that I can carry more than one … but, with all that said, securely in hand would definitely be The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman. I have a perfectly preserved first edition, given by Dominick Dunne on the occasion of my fortieth birthday.
For posterity, what would you like your work to be known for? Recontextualization … taking odd, unusual and often unloved pieces, of disparate ages, origins and materials, and recalibrating them to be seen and appreciated anew.
photo by Nelson Hancock
A Few Favorites
Movie? Now and always, Gone with the Wind, which I first experienced with my mother at the Varsity Theater in Palo Alto. During the intermission, she told me about her family and its history with slavery. At the time, I could only focus on Tara, Twelve Oaks and the Tarleton Twins, but the conversation sunk in. Visconti’s German Trilogy is pretty spectacular though.
Book? I keep coming back to The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, which so eloquently traces personal history through the lives of objects, and speaks to the transitory nature of it all. It makes me want to write. The first book that entirely took me over and made me love reading was The Count of Monte Cristo. The excitement and imagination it sparked has never been equaled. On a related note, Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke was the book that finally made me appreciate poetry, which had been a struggle and then suddenly a revelation.
Scent? The smell of primeval Sitka spruce and Douglas fir on a hike in the Olympic National Forest.
The fabric you always come back to? Indian cream colored silk burlap, which I use, when in doubt, on antique seating furniture. It is a blank slate of sorts that allows the form of each piece to take center stage.
Dream project? The restoration of our houses, carriage houses and barns in Clinton Corners and Port Townsend has been a long, arduous, but always happy dream.
Meal? Fresh oysters followed by langoustine papardelle in a cream sauce with chili oil, while sitting at the bar at Finistere in Port Townsend … heaven.
Drink? Old Fashioned in summer, Manhattan in winter.
Hotel? La Posta Vecchia … the Getty suite … negroni spagliati and backgammon on the terrace … so close to all the great villas and gardens of Lazio.
Travel Destination? Familiar: always Port Townsend. Exotic: the gardens of Japan and India.
Artist? At the moment: Sir William Nicholson … I recently found a still life drawing, in colored chalks, of daisies in a vase on a tabletop by Nicholson … so quick of hand, yet entirely finished … really the best of what a drawing can be … and Nicholson was Winston Churchill’s painting tutor in the 1930s … just imagine what those conversations were like. Always: Lord Leighton … draftsman, sculptor, painter and nascent decorator … I have had two very different drawings by Leighton … both incredibly beautiful … the most recent exhibiting an almost Cubist depiction of the human form. It too is now in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Thing to collect obsessively? Where do we start … at the moment, everything Japanese … Edo lacquered boxes, Meiji animal bronzes, Hirado shell ceramics, Taisho hanakago baskets, and on and on.
Era in the history of design? I’ve always been drawn to the nineteenth century, when hodge podge historicism and extravagant exoticism reached a fevered pitch and firmly gripped design … the best of everything reinterpreted with exuberance.
Museum? Every and all … the quirkier the better … I spent a summer working at the Ashmolean in Oxford, where the history of collecting and the scholarship thereof were evident around every corner, all secured with simple skeleton keys, which really made me very nervous.
Paint color that always look great? Ummm … whatever Markham says goes for me …
Favorite person to follow on Instagram? After falling into a voyeuristic Insta-hole, I find @naturee to be a good palette cleanser for the pomp and circumstance that Instagram has become.
Dogs, Cats, or No Pets? With Choppy and Harriet firmly in mind, nothing compares to the true love of a dog. Though, I do foresee a farm menagerie in our near future.
