Finding your perfect getaway is much like finding your true love.
Too powerful a comparison? Too poetic an analogy? Maybe, but it’s true.
Like knowing love when you find it, you will know the perfect getaway when you see it. Because a getaway is “a vision of a place you’ve had in your mind,” Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison tells designer Chris Casson Madden in Madden’s new book on this theme. “And when you find yourself there, you recognize it.”
Mull Morrison’s poetic definition of a getaway over. Soon, if you don’t have one already, a vision of your personal getaway will come into focus.
This spiritual and emotional connection to a place–the key to a great getaway match–is more than clear as you page through Madden’s book “Getaways: Carefree Retreats for All Seasons” (Clarkson Potter, $35), which features more than 30 diverse homes.
And it’s what you also recognize here in Madden’s getaway nestled in the shadows of lush Mt. Equinox, part of the Green Mountains range in southeastern Vermont. This is where the designer/author, who also hosts “Interiors by Design” on HGTV and frequently appears on the “Today” show and “Oprah,” comes with her husband, Kevin; their two sons, 15-year-old Nicholas and 19-year-old Patrick; and family pooch, Winnie, to get away from their 9-to-5 lives in Rye, N.Y. It’s a 224-mile drive to another world.
The wood-frame house has the Madden touch. Furnishings have her trademark laid-back, comfortable and chic style. Throughout the home’s four rooms, there is evidence that the lady practices what she preaches about personalizing your space.
In the great room or combined living and dining room, an engraved photo album marking an important birthday for her husband is on a round dining table that doubles as a game table for Monopoly and Anti-Monopoly.
In the laundry/mud room, a wood tray with a collage of black-and-white family photographs under glass sits on a narrow space between the sink and the laundry closet. Walking shoes and boots are casually tossed in a large white laundry basket.
This is a getaway that helps the Madden family get in touch with each other, themselves and nature. Sliding glass doors in the master bedroom, the living room/great room and Madden’s sons’ bedroom/guest room make the outdoors just a step away.
Relaxed yet polished
Like the house, Madden is in getaway character. Wearing an oversize white cotton shirt with a black cardigan sweater draped across her shoulders, black leggings and white leather flip-flop sandals, she arranges and tweaks things that are out of place to make the house company-ready. She does this while switching between author-designer mode and maternal mode.
“Have you seen Winnie? Winnie! Come here girl,” Madden calls. Winnie, though a canine of the West Highland terrier variety with a low-to-the-ground waddle, is a member of the family. “I don’t want her to go too far from the house or run off chasing something,” Madden says.
As idyllic as this Vermont getaway is, there are some harsher realities of nature to be mindful of–wolves, coyotes and wild turkeys, some of whom might fancy an adorable and confident 4-year-old pooch.
“Winnie girl” soon appears beside the well-pedicured feet of her owner, and they sashay in sync in and out of the house.Madden’s 3,500-square-foot home is in the middle of a 12-acre apple orchard. It’s a one-level home with a wraparound deck and screened-in porch.
The outdoors is as much a part of the house as the things in it. Most of the windows give a breathtaking view of trees that cast lacy shadows on the wooden deck and lawn. You can sit for hours watching the sun play with the leaves from the apple trees.
It’s charming, a delight, and made better with pieces from the namesake furniture collection Madden designed for Bassett Furniture Co. The collection made its debut at the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C., in April.
But the good looks of this 60-plus-piece collection–which includes reproductions of vintage and antique finds in China, India and the Philippines; upholstered sofas; a plumped chaise; a sexy four-poster bed with pineapple finials; marble-top night stand; and a wicker and rattan bed tray/table–are not limited to looking good in Madden’s home. Or second homes.
The versatility of these relaxed and sophisticated designs makes them natural fits in almost any environment where people have a vision about creating a tranquil getaway spot–whether in a second home or a primary residence.
Madden mixes them up in her Vermont home with affordable looks from IKEA, (such as the black- and gold-painted metal beds in her sons’ bedroom, which doubles as the guest room), Ralph Lauren wallcoverings that hint at adventure in the Sahara Desert and other furnishings and decorative objects she has picked up along the way.
Highlights from the collection include the Dorset sofa ($2,400), which sits in front of the fireplace in her living room/great room. The sofa, named for the Vermont town to which Madden escapes, also separates two dining areas–one with a round table and the other a rectangular one.
The Cathay Chinoiserie secretary ($1,799) and upholstered chaise ($799 to $1,199) are two more standouts in the collection and Madden’s getaway.
Madden, who has been a creative consultant to Bassett since 1998, gets her design inspiration from the people she meets and places she visits. She traveled to mainland China, the Philippines and Hong Kong to study, photograph and sketch designs there. The results can be seen in her collection.
“I didn’t just sign my name on the collection,” says Madden, who worked with Bassett’s designer Sherry McAdams on the collection. “We all look forward to the rare times when we can come together, relax and rejuvenate. And now I’ve been able to design a collection of furniture that my family and I can enjoy no matter where we are.”
The Chris Casson Madden collection for Bassett Furniture Co. can be found at Darvin Furniture Store, 15400 LaGrange Rd., Orland Park, 708-460-4100.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO FAR TO GET AWAY
Sure, it’s wonderful to physically get away, but getting away doesn’t have to mean leaving town or going to a second house.
“It’s the way people should live within their own walls,” says Chris Casson Madden, who unveiled her namesake collection for Bassett Furniture Co., last spring at the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C.
While visiting Madden’s home in Vermont, we picked up some tips on what made her getaway a charming work of art that can be created in a walk-up in Bucktown or a ranch in Orland Park. Loosely follow these 10 rules, come up with some of your own and you’ll be on your way to a getaway.
1. Books: Yes, says Madden. Newspapers and news magazines: No (remember, rules are meant to be broken).
2. Music (your taste in music may vary from Madden’s-Steely Dan’s “Two Against Nature” and James Taylor’s “Hourglass”). Or opt for silence, she says, but definitely ban TV and unnecessary noise.
3. Pillows-lots of them. Also a comfortable chair, chaise or sofa.
4. Flowers in the garden (Lilac bushes graced the entrance to Madden’s getaway and a fragrant patch of lily-of-the-valley lined her front walkway).
5. Finger food and favorite fruit to nibble.
6. A family pet to sleep by your side. Cats and dogs are great role models when it comes to relaxing.
7. A shawl or robe to cover and snuggle in. Use those pashmina shawls purchased in the winter as throws that can double as evening wraps when the evenings cool.
8. Peace and quiet. Turn off phones, pagers and fax machines.
9. A fireplace to warm cool evenings. If you don’t have a fireplace, let a tray of candles of different heights create your getaway glow.
10. Nature. Get in touch with it-from putting a potted plant on a windowsill to watching birds bob from branch to branch.
