TXDW Houston — Designer Madeline Stuart Radiates Old Hollywood Glamour at Elegant Additions

It’s no wonder Los Angeles-based designer Madeline Stuart has been on an epic quest for the secret to enduring design. Stories of her childhood in Hollywood include dropping her bike at the front door of The Beverly Hills Hotel before ordering breakfast in the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop; memories of her family’s Spanish Revival home with its 17th-century fireplace, elaborate parquetry floors, and stained-glass windows; and, of course, begging her father, director Mel Stuart, to adapt her favorite book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for the big screen.

Whatever may have seemed of-the-moment during Stuart’s youth has proven itself against the test of time and remains perennially chic to this day. Stuart herself can be described as perennially chic, with her biting wit and the slightest accent reminiscent of old Hollywood (perhaps a byproduct of growing up watching old MGM flicks in a friend’s screening room).

She delivered her illustrated talk during Texas Design Week Houston to a packed crowd inside the dreamy Elegant Additions showroom, offering personal anecdotes, insights, and beautiful imagery from her book, No Place Like Home: Interiors by Madeline Stuart (Rizzoli).

The book not only serves as a record of Stuart’s work — which over the years has included clients Nora Ephron, Larry David, Jason Alexander, Lisa Henson, and many others — but also captures her musings on timeless interiors and how looking back in time is often the best way to look forward. A self-professed “anti-trendsetter,” Stuart has studied interiors from every era, seeking to differentiate the trends from the timeless.

“What I think is so important in our work is timelessness,” she said. “What we do for our clients shouldn’t be carbon-dated to a specific year, or we haven’t done our clients justice, and we haven’t done our homes justice.”

PC Seen: Elegant Additions owner Julie Koch welcoming the design community, Courtney Hill Fertitta, London LeMay, Emily Pfister, Anne Bruni, Heather Kolos, Linley Stroud, Ryan Richardson, Kendra Benson, Laura Hoppe, Lauren Adams, Rainey Richardson, Graham Church, Lauren Haskett, Anne and Stefano Bruni, Kristy Geary, Ruth Gay,  Sarah Eilers, Abier Alkhouri, Rasha Nasreddin, Richard Humphreys, and Julie Whitworth.

Texas Design Week Houston sponsors: New Orleans Auction Galleries, Monogram Luxury Appliances, Decorative Center Houston.