A GENTLE PLEA FOR CHAOS

Recently, we went to stay with Penny Bianchi, the marvelous designer and our great friend in Santa Barbara. She was the first person to hire us when we had just launched our business, 28 years ago. Penny wanted to know why we had only one photo on our web site of the work
we did in her powder room. We painted this mural in the Montecito home she built 10 years ago. This blog and the photos included herein are our feeble attempt to make up for that omission.



Penny's home is featured in the September issue of House Beautiful. The title of the article is "Patina".



It is a magical place that one might suddenly come upon in the Italian countryside.



Sequestered at the end of a small road where a hiking trail leads you by a butterfly preserve. A pea gravel pathway takes you along an alle of olive trees and into a different world.



It is here that Penny and Adam invite the birds of Santa Barbara to live with them amidst a wonderland of native plants and trees.



One might easily be deceived into thinking that nature herself had created this Eden – but it has evolved over ten years under the careful direction of Penny.

Both garden and house take you back to the fairy tales that comprised your childhood.

Each room, whether inside or out is full of potential discovery. Beautifully controlled chaos reigns, the spaces overflow with lovely things from different times and places.

The interior tumbles out onto porches and terraces and the garden grows in, up the walls and across the ceilings. There are no boundaries.