TOM SCHEERER DECORATES

In a world where over-the-top accessorizing and conspicuous luxury get all the attention, Tom Scheerer has cultivated his own, more restrained brand of chic, a look he modestly describes as 'cheerful' and 'no nonsense.' In New York apartments, Brooklyn brownstones, Bahamian country clubs, and Maine summer houses, Scheerer has created rooms that are crisp and confident, but also visually enthralling. The magic is in the way Scheerer combines classic, old-fashioned decorating with modernist touches à la Albert Hadley and Billy Baldwin, but with a keener attention to natural materials, unpretentious vernacular crafts, and the prettiest color combinations this side of India. He cherishes the simplest, least manipulated fabrics'cottons, linens, dimities, even candlewicking'and loves certain inexpensive accents as much as he does truly fine ones. All this adds up to fresh, relaxed interiors that look like no others. Exquisitely photographed, this first book of Scheerer's work perfectly illustrates what makes that work so unforgettable.