Dear Santa: Bunny Williams' Holiday Give and Get List

By Reena Jana
December 22, 2010

Our Series on What Today's Top Stylemakers Plan to Give—and Hope to Get!—for the Holidays

In the world of interior design, Bunny Williams is an institution. Based on New York’s Upper East Side, she’s run Bunny Williams Incorporated for 22 years—and before that, she worked at the highly respected decorating firm Parish-Hadley Associates since 1966. She’s a master at creating welcoming, lively rooms and environments that are at once balanced and yet seem unstudied in their charm and elegance. "Most people today do not want to live in a museum, surrounded by nothing but antique furnishings," Bunny Williams said. “They love beautiful expressive pieces that often have great sentimental value but want to mix them with comfortable upholstery, some contemporary pieces, and modern technology. To me, that makes for exciting design."

Bunny Williams (Credit: Miguel Flores-Vianna); Scrapbook for Living (Credit: Amy Archer)

Bunny Williams's new book, A Scrapbook for Living (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), features 100 color illustrations. In it, she offers sage interior design tips on making individual rooms feel gracious and lived in—but never stuffy or formal. “I have kept many scrapbooks over the years and also collect images and ideas that inspire me and put them in simple red binders,” Bunny Williams said when asked about what inspired her to write the interior design book. "In my many years creating homes for myself and designing homes for my clients, I have learned about organizing and personalizing a house. I wanted to share my knowledge and give as many concrete tips as I could think of to help them make their own homes comfortable and functional." The book is as neatly organized as a Bunny Williams-designed home. Williams has put together helpful sections focused on specific household categories, including one on books and another on living with animals. She also addresses specific utilitarian areas that can be troublesome to make attractive, such as the laundry room.

In her own homes, interior designer Bunny Williams practices her own strategies for collecting useful yet gorgeous decor. In her New York apartment, she sometimes eats dinner after a hectic day in her favorite room, her bedroom, enjoying the meal on her collection of pretty, yet practical, dinner trays. When she’s at her house in Connecticut, she likes to entertain in her plant-filled conservatory with "masses of candles glowing," she says. And in her getaway house in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, she buys pale blue cotton slipcovers for her living room furniture, as well as pieces of "quirky" artwork by local and global painters and sculptors.

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Point of View by Bunny Williams
Williams in her conservatory
Photo Credit: Miguel Flores-Vianna
An image from Williams' new book, Scrapbook for Living
Photo Credit: Amy Archer
An image from Scrapbook for Living
Photo Credit: Amy Archer
An image from Scrapbook for Living
Photo Credit: Amy Archer
BeeLine Home Star Chair, designed by Williams
Photo Credit: Widner Creative
Williams' bedroom
Photo Credit: Pieter Estersohn

Bunny Williams is a co-owner (with her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli) of Treillage, a Manhattan boutique that offers eye-catching house wares, garden décor, original artwork, and stylish jewelry that looks like art. Ever the entrepreneur, Bunny Williams recently launched her own line of furniture, Beeline Home. It includes pieces that reflect Williams’ sensibility of mixing past and present. One eye-catching example I noticed is the Star Chair. It has a silhouette that echoes early 19th-century Regency designs, and has a painted finish with hand-applied gold leaf and star-shaped carvings on the armrests. Williams says that when working on clients’ homes, she loves adding a "character" chair that instantly gives a room personality—a concept that helped inform her design of this lovely piece. "The Star Chair is a surprise when mixed with brown furniture. Plus, we all need an extra seat for visitors this time of year," Bunny Williams added.

Speaking of this time of year, we asked Bunny Williams; advice on buying presents for the holidays. She shared with us her own shopping plans, as well as her picks for what she’d like to see under her own Christmas tree. With an ever increasing roster of clients, colleagues, and friends, Williams said, "My holiday gift giving list grows longer every year." Yet she makes time to find personal and meaningful objects to share with loved ones. Her holiday gift choices are clearly thoughtful additions to the recipients’ homes… and their lives.

What Bunny Williams Plans to Give (and Hopes to Get) This Holiday Season

Roll over items for details

Garden Book

Billy Baldwin by Adam Lewis

Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

Dear Santa: Bunny Williams' Holiday Give and Get List

GIVING:

1. Scented Candles: Available in fragrances that range from florals to fruits to food, scented candles are Bunny Williams' favorite gift for the homebody. Or for a big family get-together, give them to the whole group in a variety of different scents.

2. Bunny Williams Book: For special friends, "I’ll send signed copies of my new book, Scrapbook for Living,” the interior designer told us.

3. Garden Book: For gardeners, Williams loves Jane Garmey’s new book, Private Gardens of Connecticut.

4. Caramel Cake: A delectable caramel cake is Bunny Williams' choice for the foodies on her list. The cozy, buttery scent is welcome this time of year.

5. Cheetah Dog Bed: For the dog lovers in her life, Bunny Williams plans to give unique dog beds covered in plush faux fur in a cheetah or lynx pattern.

GETTING:

6. Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle: “I love the ones with nature themes like butterflies or birds,” Bunny Williams said.

7. Pet Shelter Stamps: When asked what the most special gift she could receive would be, Bunny Williams says she'd like people to consider supporting local animal shelters during the holiday season and to consider pet adoption. "My dogs all came from shelters and so many animals need a loving home," she says. These collectable stamps, issued in 2010, were created to raise public awareness of pet adoption and animal shelters.

8. Billy Baldwin by Adam Lewis: “I adore design books. I’d love the new one on design legend Billy Baldwin by Adam Lewis.”

9. Luxury Sheets: "A divine set of sheets," is another holiday gift request from Santa. A cashmere and flannel blend like the ones pictured would be ideal for the chilly winter months.

10. Chunky Necklace: "A fabulous chunky necklace" is top on Bunny Williams's list.