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Décor that's Drawn from Experience

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Caroline Millett knows how to drive a point home.  She teaches an interior design course through the University of Pennsylvania on finding your own style.  It ends with a party at her place. 

“When we went into her home, it was, ‘oh, okay.’  Now I see,” said former student Stormy Lundy, who directs special events at the Reading Terminal Market.  “She has such and eclectic personal style, and is very, very creative.”

Lundy came away with the confidence to have an antique chair reupholstered and to paint a hallway a rust tone.  The vivid palette in Millett’s home, a Victorian twin, arises from playing rustic planked floors off sophisticated artwork and Oriental rugs, while the décor artfully melds disparate fields.  

A Boscov’s daybed helps complete the exotic ambience conjured by a bronze Pakistani lighting fixture and Brazilian nailed chest.  A desk lamp made of found objects by Philadelphia artists Harry Anderson matches the elegance of the Jefferson-era desk on which it sits.

Creating an environment that reflects your passions yet serves its purpose is tough to achieve.  “Most people are pretty good at putting themselves together,” Millett said, but a home is a larger project.  “It’s got to be more functional, is a whole lot more expensive to furnish, and represents a long-standing statement of your taste.”

Millett’s own home bespeaks worldliness, cultivated through a stint in the foreign service (late 1960’s, early 70’s); as promoter of American high culture abroad (Washington, mid- to late 1970’s); as a real estate developer specializing in historic preservation (Washington and Baltimore, mid 1970’s to mid-1980’s, University City, mid-1980’s to early 1990’s); and as an interior designer and teacher (Philadelphia, the past decade). 

A Midwesterner who shunned marriage and children to pursue a more adventurous path, she came to Philadelphia in 1984 to serve as Vice President at the University of the Arts, and remained. 

During a tour of her home, you may also learn that she was a protégé of Philadelphia architect Louis Kahn; that during the 1970’s she had a romance with a South American fashion photographer, and that while serving as a cultural attaché to Brazil, she went horseback riding with military strongman and future Brazilian president Joao Baptista Figueirido. 

With such wide horizons, it’s not surprising that some of her decorating strategies are a bit unconventional – such as befriending artists and cultivating contractors.  “They may entail more work, but they’re a lot of fun,” said Millett, pointing to some intriguing paintings purchased from a University of the Arts student. 

 “Go to framing shops managed by artists trying to make a living.  Go to First Friday.  Hang out.  Have fun.  But you’ve got to have a real interest or else it’s just someone trying to get something on the cheap, and then this great wall comes down. 

Jackie Needleman, a recent alum of Millett’s continuing education course, loves the idea.  “I never was a person who thought I could afford artwork…but when I’m ready, I might want to incorporate it into my home.” 

As a result of class discussion on light, Needleman, an online marketing consultant and Wynnewood mother of three, recently moved a lamp into her living room from another part of the house, and has been reaping the compliments.  But what she’s found most empowering have been discussions on texture and color. 

Interiors in Millett’s twin are painted shades of amber because the color is warm – it bathes the room in a golden glow.  An exception is the bedroom – all white, except for a gold and pink Oriental on the floor, a small forest of potted plants behind the brass bed, and books and art lining the walls. 

“That’s where my spirit is,” Millett said, glancing at the walls, “and I didn’t want color interfering with it.” 

Another departure is the dusty old rose on the walls of her upstairs office, where Millett is learning to use the computer.  It makes the room more inviting, she says, the task less daunting.  Millett has also rendered the space cozier by taking off the closet doors and lining them up on a diagonal near her desk as a form of inner architecture. 

There’s also a red wall in her “public” office on the first floor, where she meets clients and contractors, that lends a more contemporary feeling to the home.  And abstract expressionist painting hangs from it. 

In the adjoining sitting room is a far more realistic rendering of a woman hanging wash by Millett’s great uncle, George Van Millett.  “According to family lore, it once hung in the Louvre,” Millett said.  “It was given to my parents as a wedding present.” 

While her love of art may be traced to this ancestor, Millett traces her love of adventure to a great great uncle – Ishiam Ferguson, a Pony Express rider and riverboat gambler. 

History fascinates Millett – she holds a masters degree in it from Stanford and has gravitated toward historic homes.  “I don’t seem to be able to live anywhere else.” 

In 1986, she purchased her twin in Powelton because she felt that property values were depressed by the cloud of MOVE, the radical group that had been involved in standoffs with the police, both in Powelton in 1978 and later in the disastrous police siege and bombing of their West Philadelphia rowhouse. 

She was also intrigued by her home’s history: “I’ve learned from architects and preservationists that it was typical of the more rustic second homes built here by the well-to-do from the city who wanted to escape the noise, heat, and disease before the Civil War.”  The home dates to 1855.

Millett hasn’t done much to change the space except knock down the upper half of the wall between the kitchen and dining room and take off some closet doors to create more openness.  She’s also upgraded the bathrooms and the electrical systems and repaired the roof. 

That’s similar in scope to what she did to renovate the first townhouse she did in D.C., a high Edwardian in Logan Circle.  Purchased in 1973 for $65,000, she put in $55,000 in repairs and renovations, and it sold eight years later for more than three times her investment. 

It was a process she would repeat over as a developer, but one she almost didn’t pursue because of the high cost of repairs – until she got an offbeat idea.

Being a good cook who loved to entertain, she once talked a plumber into providing a new furnace in exchange for a slew of dinners.  “He could choose the menus, but others were in attendance,” Millett said.

The scheme was a success and led to other contracting connections.  “The idea is to pay medium dollar for top-quality work.  You want to find someone who is fair, reasonable, and honest, and pay them well because they’re going to work much faster.”

Similarly, Millett learned to recognize artistic quality by spending time with the museum directors, artists, and architects she met while working with a government committee showcasing American culture abroad. 

“They trained my eyes,” she said.  “That’s where I got the background that made it possible to become a confident designer.” 

Millett paused beside a fragment of a church staircase, purchased for a pittance at a shop in the Brazilian countryside three decades ago.  Now in her dining room, it’s an eye-catching architectural detail used to display an eclectic mix of teapots. 

“There’s always new bargains,” she said.  “You just have to develop your eye so you know what to buy.”