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Whatever the cost and whoever the decorator, the look that is in vogue in the '60s is openly, eclectic (see color pages). States Sears, Roebuck's Director of Design Richard D. Butler: "The period room is a thing of the past." With the prices of authentic antiques soaring as the worldwide supply diminishes, it was inevitable. The decorator, as a consequence, has become an artful mix master.
Simpler & Livelier. "Most living rooms are a total disaster because they are not used—they were meant to be looked at," says San Francisco Decorator Michael Taylor. Taylor spent a year transforming San Francisco Socialite Mrs. Davies Lewis' drawing room from a masculine retreat with wood-paneled walls and bookcases (the taste of the former occupant) into an elegant, eclectic ensemble. "It is more European than San Franciscan, which is what I wanted," says Mrs. Lewis, who has used Taylor twice before, jokes that she agrees with Taylor on all but one matter. "I don't usually like his price," she says.
"As long as the scale is right, people are mixing away and coming up with very beautiful results," says Manhattan Decorator Ellen McCluskey, whose apartment foyer for Mrs. Ruth Lachman is a tasteful case in point. "This is a time for mixing not only periods but also nationalities," says Albert Hadley, partner with New York Decorator Mrs. Henry Parish II, who proved it by deftly combining 17th century Oriental art, 18th century English furniture and a 20th century American carpet in the Charleston, W. Va., living room of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV. The driftwood shutters that Mrs. Parish designed for the "morning room" of Publisher John Hay Whitney's Manhattan town house signal another trend: heavy, floor-to-ceiling drapes are Out, and simpler, livelier window treatments are In.
On the Wild Side. Floors? Wall-to-wall carpeting, once a status symbol, is giving way to area rugs, which allow polished wood floors to show handsomely, as in Decorator Anthony Hail's own San Francisco studio. Walls? The trend is away from stark, white-painted plaster and toward colors and textures. Decorator Frank Austin used burlap in Actress Polly Bergen's Beverly Hills living room; Decorator Arthur Elrod specified walnut wood and marble for Film Financier Eugene Klein's hilltop home near by.
Fabrics, as well as colors, are on the wild side. Fur for rugs, pillows and even bedspreads is increasingly popular. For Vogue Publisher S. I. Newhouse Jr., Manhattan Decorator Billy Baldwin not only covered the hassocks with suede but even turned a pack of scavenging jackals into a luxurious rug. Busy patterns, thinks Bloomingdale's Interior Design Chief David Bell, will be increasingly used to make small apartment rooms appear bigger through trompe-l'oeil. At the moment, the most popular style of furniture, at least in the mass market, is Early American, but a change may be in the wind. "With the 1930s being revived in fashion," says Dabbie Daniels, a senior decorator at Manhattan's W & J Sloane, the nation's oldest home furnishing house, "I think we will see 1930s rooms with lots of white and silver and mirrors—very Jean Harlow, very much the platinum movie-goddess look of opulence."