The Sum of its Parts
Modern & traditional designs converge in a Florida town house for a new classic style
Elinor and Robert Turkel's town house in Tampa, Florida, contains a rarified meeting of icons--traditional and modern furnishings so stellar that they serve as shorthand for their design schools. "Our very first piece was the Barcelona table," Elinor says. That fabled design of modernist architect Mies van der Rohe is still in their collection. But instead of teaming up with others of its kind, it's joined by traditional furnishings of equal rank.
Elinor's Barcelona coffee table--clear glass on cool metal--stands inches from the living room's Chippendale bench, an 18th-century classic with ball-and-claw feet, thick cabriole legs, and dark wood. "The Barcelona table by itself, though beautiful, can be construed as cold and stark," Elinor says. But standing alongside the heavier-scaled Chippendale bench, "it lightens [the bench] and just completely offsets its stiffness so that balance and harmony are created." The more decorative Victorian antiques work similar magic on the spare modern furnishings, grounding them and shaking off their chill.
"I put it all together haphazardly, without a vision, simply as all the things I love," Elinor says. Intuition was her capable guide. "I allowed myself to see how the Victorian pieces would work in the dining room. Once I put the candelabra on the table, they never left."
By Candace Manroe
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