A 1980s CONDO GOES RETRO VINTAGE

We needed the amenities of our modern condominium complex-but that didn't stop us from completely transforming it, in two period styles!

- Cathy Hefner

Anyone who knows me will say I belong in the past. Victorian style and even more recent eras like the 1950s captivate me with their color, patterns, and decorative detail. For more than thirty years I designed rooms for myself that would have felt comfortable to the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies. A Victorian in Redwood City, followed by another near Chico, California, gave me the canvas to play out all my deepest Gilded Age decorating urges.

It’s a little ironic that I should end up, in retirement, with my husband Larry, in a high-rise condominium complex that was built in the 1980s (and hasn’t been remodeled since). Our health no longer lets us live where we want, so a few years after moving here we decided to bring a little bit of that old-time magic to three rooms: the living room, solarium, and galley kitchen.