06 Mar 5 Treasures I Adored At Bunny Williams’ Treillage Shop

Have you come up with the answer yet from this week’s #TextureTuesday question about what material is used for the vintage Barcelona Style Outdoor Chair?  If not, it soon shall be revealed along with five fabulous treasures I loved at Treillage in NYC!

This image above, and many more below, are truly great examples of the diversity of textured treasures one can find at Treillage, the NYC shop owned by Bunny Williams and her charming husband John Rosselli. I was so lucky to be able to meet this delightful design-savvy couple while on #BlogTourNYC through Modenus.  (Although this is not a sponsored post, I am able to share some wonderful pics because of the generous sponsors that paid for my trip to NYC for Blog Tour in Spring of 2014. It was the trip of a lifetime thanks to @mieleusa , @blancoamerica , @prizerhoods,  @dxv , @ruttcabinetry. Please follow them on Twitter and check out their websites. All photos and views are my own).

Here’s Bunny Williams talking to some of the bloggers on #BlogTourNYC2014. Thanks to two talented New York gals, Sarah Sarna and Tina Ramchandani, we were able to spend an entire morning with Bunny and John and their staff at their amazing Upper East Side shop Treillage. Below was a delicious smorgasbord of food they put out for us. Check out the artisan hand carved wooden mushroom centerpieces!

Okay, now for the big reveal of the material used for the Barcelona Style Outdoor Chair above.

It looks like supple leather, correct?  Wrong!  And boy, was I surprised when I sat down.  It is hard as a rock and handcrafted from concrete stone.

I still can’t believe it, because it looks SO much like real leather, down to the stitching and the zipper detail. It’s truly an amazing work of art! (I couldn’t find it on Treillage or Bunny Williams Home website any more, so I’m not sure if they still offer it? But it is one of THE best finds at Treillage as you can see I listed it in my Top 10 for Best of Blog Tour. )

Now please come take a stroll with me through Bunny Williams’ magnificent shop Treillage.  I’ve seen lots of shops in my time, many antique and garden stores, but I have NEVER seen a store quite like Bunny’s.

What makes Bunny’s  shop, Treillage, so meaningful for me, personally, is that it’s the kind of shop my mother and I used to love to get lost in when she was alive. 

But what’s different, is that I literally could have spent days in this tiny shop, looking in all the nooks and crannies (there’s really only two large rooms and a patio) and still discovered something new at every turn.  Bunny and John started the store in 1991 after they realized there really wasn’t a store in the states that offered the kind of unique finds they discovered on their European trips.

They have curated the most amazing one-of-a-kind home and garden objects, furnishings and decor that you must – I mean MUST – visit their shop in person if you ever have the opportunity while in NYC.

 Let’s start at the food table where many of my fellow bloggers were munching away underneath a wonderful two-teired candle chandelier. Do you see how just in this one main room there are two mirrors, two topiarys and an array of framed pictures?  That’s just for starters.

#1 Treasure – Lamps and Chandeliers:  Here’s the wooden lamp on the table with the tulips and Pellegrino, just one of many different shapes and sizes of lighting in the shop. And yes, tulips and flowers were everywhere! Bunny sure knows how to make a store come alive.

In my #TextureTuesday post I showed you in detail the incredible textured carvings of the wooden table this lamp rests on. Below is an example of a chandelier and a lamp and table, a common vignette throughout the store, but far from ordinary. Every vignette captured my attention, as there was always something unique to explore in detail. Just this one vignette alone is a perfect example:  You have a painting, a chandelier, a lamp, a table, pottery, a clock, and of course a beautiful bouquet of tulips. The vignette captures practical home items along with antiques, rich color and incredible texture with the intricate details of the chandelier.

This is a classic Treillage vignette! One of Bunny Williams’ signature looks for the home.

And all you had to do was look up to see an enormous diversity of light fixtures from table to ceiling!

Now let’s step behind that table into a large room filled from side to side with treasures awaiting your creative imagination. At first there is so much to see you don’t even know where to begin, so I started with the wall of pillows.  Good place to start for the Pillow Goddess, don’t you think?

#2 Treasure – Pillows, Pillows and More Pillows: Bunny filled a large antique bookcase with various shapes and sizes of pillows, as well as a trunk and chair in front. These are just a few details of the colors and patterns Bunny is known for in her collection at Bunny Williams Home. I love her mixture of modern and vintage styles and the textiles remind me of folk art.

 

#3 Treasure –  Topiaries, mirrors and Urns: Here at the end of this long large room is a magnificent vignette with two large wooden urns. Another strikingly gorgeous example of how well curated, collected and displayed all the garden and home objects are at Treillage. Do you see the three mirrors in this one vignette? I love the two large wooden urns that frame this picture!

Below is, if I remember correctly, a 200 year old tree, that serves as the symbol of Treillage.

 #4 Treasure – Glass, Pottery and Wood: Everywhere I turned there was a treasure to see. Whether it was hand blown glass or incredible braided wooden table legs, I was taken aback by all the unusual and remarkable objects that would be beautiful in anyones home, and all styles of interiors.

What a swirl of colors and textures in this glass menagerie above!

Can you believe the wooden legs on this table below? I’ve never seen table legs like this before in my life! I just think they are so unique, obviously an antique treasure found by Bunny and John.

This table below is one of my favorite, more “rustic” vignettes in the Treillage shop. You have a very old antique green table that could easily be used as a writing desk in a guest room or a table for gardening in a potting shed.  Then the collection of pottery on top is just a real treasure trove of shapes and colors. She even has green wooden apples!

And if you notice, when you’re looking at one vignette, out of the corner of your eye is yet another vignette awaiting your discovery!

For example, around the corner from this table are  pillows on the wooden bench in the upper right corner of this image. But don’t for a minute think that at Treillage you have one vignette after another. You can’t even tell there are vignettes in the shop, because it is so expertly curated and displayed, it’s almost like walking through someone’s home, albeit someone with an eye for collecting the magnificent. Bunny and her staff do an outstanding job!

I love how this photo below captured a mirror within a mirror. Treillage has so many mirrors of all shapes, colors and sizes…many of them extremely rare finds.

Now our stroll through Treillage is hardly over, but I want to take a moment’s break before the finale to introduce you to Bunny and John as they autograph Bunny’s latest book, “An Affair With A House.” As you can see there’s more beautiful glass right next to the book!

 Here is John, about to whip out his pen for Bunny to do some autographing! What a delightfully charming couple. Kind of like a fairy-tale love story! You’ll have to read more about them HERE. They were THE most gracious hosts with John charming all the ladies, and Bunny teaching all us design bloggers so much about  interiors and the art of learning.

Bunny’s one tip that I remember the most is: To take a drawing class. She said you’d be surprised how much that prepares you for life and a career in design. She felt it was almost a foundation to living!

Before we head to the very back of the store down a long hallway to the outdoor finale, I first want to share a magnificent statue with you. I don’t remember exactly who this is, but it is incredibly striking to me, especially with the topiaries on either side. And those are circular place mats on the wall and of course a devine mirror behind the statue. Be sure to check out all of Bunny Williams Home design as they have many of their own lines from furniture to table top that are divine!

Now, here we go, we’re at the end of our stroll down a long corridor to a room obviously filled with everything under the sun for your garden (pun intended!).

And then we turn the corner to head out this tiny back door, and voila, a whole outdoor world awaits you!

#5 Treasure – Garden benches, statues, and Objets d’art: It just amazed me the enormity of all the hand-selected, one-of-a-kind objects that Bunny and John have collected, and continue to collect in their travels (as the store’s inventory changes regularly!). And how they’ve filled this tiny space, Treillage, full of fascinating objects, almost like little life stories. I can totally image someone, or me, sitting outside enjoying a pretty day in this garden with this statue and plants all around me.

But it is this one metal world with a cupids arrow through it that really took me back. How amazingly unique! I would just love this in my garden. And I love the fact that it’s red!

 

Here’s a parting pic of John and I that I just love!  He was the most charming man, radiating with warmth and charisma. I can certainly see why Bunny scooped him up many years ago!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief stroll through Bunny and John’s shop Treillage. You can learn more about them on both the Treillage website and Bunny Williams Home. I wanted to share what it was like walking through their shop, how every time I turned around there was a new treasure to discover. I couldn’t even begin to describe everything in their NYC shop, but I think the five treasure groupings I selected do sum up, not all, but some of the one-of-a-kind items that truly spoke to me. And ones I would decorate my home with in a heart beat! I hope you’ve enjoyed this stroll. Many thanks to Bunny and John for sharing their world with me. Till next time, enjoy your weekend! XO PG