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Responding to a suggestion that she had been
“chased” from one place to another by catastrophe,
she responds that rather than having been chased,
she’d been
inspired
by catastrophe. “I was fortunate,”
she says during a conversation in the living room of
her new Montecito home, “I had a beautiful place in
Connecticut, so I had a place to go.”
After just a few months in the country, however,
Linda realized she needed more stimulation and “began
to think about moving back to California.”
In all her years of living in Los Angeles, she
frequently ended up doing projects in Montecito. “I
always remember coming up the coast,” Linda recounts,
“and coming around the bend at Fernald Point, with
the marine layer moving in and the ocean meeting
the mountains... you know you’ve arrived.” Other
attractions included, “the quality of light, the oaks and
sycamores, and the wonderful variety of plantings.”
Along with her newly purchased Jack Warner-
designed home (“I’m a great admirer of Jack Warner,”
she says, adding modestly, “[my house] is one of his
smaller endeavors”), Linda’s design studio is currently
located in nearby Summerland, where she also expects
her showroom to be ready some time before the end
of summer. Her office is upstairs. The Summerland
showroom will feature select pieces for sale, along with
displays and vignettes of the kind of design work she is
noted for.
As for Linda Chase’s unique “style,” she seeks
furniture pieces, “that have a certain vitality to them
and that don’t look too ‘precious.’” As an example,
she cites “a faux bois table with a texture that looks
like bark but is painted white, a chest that might be
fabricated with rope appliqués and unusual lacquered
knobs, hand-printed, hand-painted whimsical textiles
from Carolyn Quartermaine or rich velvets from Sabina
Fay Braxton.”
Her “signature,” she surmises is “attention to
detail and a strong love of color, the juxtaposition of
materials from the fine and precious to the everyday. I
like mixing,” she says, “rough-hewn boards with maybe
a velvet trimmed in something not so luxurious.” Her
colors are drawn from a rich palette, often accented
with various shades of red.
DESIGN
(photo by David Phelps, Los Angeles)
(photo by Victor Lopes, NYC)