![]() It has the ability to create and set an entire mood. They envelop a room and transform it in a way that a piece of furniture can’t. We believe our wallpapers bring interiors to life. We then have beautiful finishes that can be added, such as silk embroidery or beading. When it comes to our more modern collections, we use a wide range of other materials such as hand-gilded metal-leaf grounds and textured papers. For our traditional chinoiserie designs, we use the same materials that were used in 18th-century wallpapers. The silk is hand dyed and the paper backing is handmade Chinese rice paper. Our chinoiserie designs are hand painted in watercolours onto silk which is then paper backed. What are the wallpapers actually made of? He saw a gap in the market to produce something beautiful and reignite 18th-century traditions of hand painting these wallpapers in China. It all started when he was looking for a hand-painted Chinese wallpaper to decorate his own home and discovered that the art of hand-painting chinoiserie wallpapers had almost died out. My father has always been passionate about interiors and decoration. For those that aren’t familiar with de Gournay, can you give us a brief overview of the business, its history and what you do? And for those who wish to take a piece home with them, framed panels of the mural are for sale throughout the hotel.Hannah, hello, how wonderful to be chatting to you. Gurney adds: “When you step back and take in the whole interior, the wallpaper is this amazing love letter to Florida and to the Colony.” “We wanted to capture that ‘old Palm Beach’ attitude, which is equal parts nostalgia and whimsy and is as natural as the island itself.” “The mural is full of hidden details and secret meanings, some of which are intensely personal to our family, while others are meant to be discovered by our guests and community,” Sarah confirms. Even Palmer, the Wetenhall family’s Cavalier King Charles spaniel and a frequent hotel guest, makes an appearance. The hotel’s mascot, Johnny Brown, is seen to the right of the fireplace waving the Colony’s pennant flag. Here are a few of those surprises to be on the lookout for: The initials WW+LW are carved into a tree, in honor of William and Lucia Waller, the husband-and-wife duo who opened the hotel in 1947. In a detail of the mural, Palmer-the Wetenhalls’ Cavalier King Charles spaniel and a frequent guest at the hotel-holds a bucket with his age at the time of the painting. Every time you walk to a different part of the lobby, there are new things to discover and unveil that will make you smile.” “Having these characters throughout the wallpaper, hidden among the foliage, creates such a beautiful story for the visitors to the hotel. ![]() “The wallpaper is completely different than anything we’ve created before,” says de Gournay director Hannah Cecil Gurney. The resulting hand-painted mural, entitled “The Living Room,” is none other than the “pink paradise” of Andrew’s childhood brought to life. Jemma Cave, de Gournay’s design director, began sketching the hotel’s folkloric characters, while McMakin focused on the color palette, which was inspired by a Pierre Frey textile central to the design scheme. Having first caught her eye after its collaboration with Erdem, de Gournay was the perfect partner to realize Sarah’s dream the team immediately set to work studying up on Florida’s flora and fauna as well as the history of the hotel. The Living Room mural by de Gournay in the Colony Hotel’s lobby is full of whimsical characters-like these flamingos wearing pearl necklaces. “I had a dream of visually immersing our guests in the Colony ethos in a way that was truly unique.” “Hospitality is all about first impressions, and so we knew we needed to create a stellar guest experience from the start,” Sarah says. With a similar idea in mind, she called (via Zoom, of course) the storied wallpaper house de Gournay to collaborate on a new scenic mural for the lobby. ![]() While perusing old photographs and postcards, she stumbled upon one depicting a midcentury mural in the lobby dating back to the hotel’s opening in 1947. Still, when the couple announced their plans to restore the hotel to its former glory, with the help of Mimi McMakin of Kemble Interiors, Sarah knew she had to proceed carefully. Thankfully, Andrew and Sarah Wetenhall, who purchased the Colony Hotel in 2016, were very familiar with these protocols-Andrew’s family had previously been the owners of the very same hotel just a few decades ago. When you buy a landmark hotel-especially in a town like Palm Beach-there are traditions to be kept, an ambience to maintain, and a character to be preserved.
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