For Bunny Williams, working from her Connecticut getaway during the pandemic provided a crucial creative spark. “When I wasn’t in my studio, with the kind of peace and quiet I never have at my office in Manhattan, I was fumbling around in my garden and realizing that I didn’t have this, I couldn’t find that,” the blue-chip interior decorator recalls. “I wanted one-of-a-kind things, but that’s the trouble—when you need a pair of benches, for example, one-of-a-kind is difficult to find.”
Which explains the AD100 talent’s titular relaunch of Treillage, the iconic garden furnishings and accessories shop that she and her now husband, dealer John Rosselli, opened in 1991 and closed in 2015. This spring, the name has been resurrected for her new range of eye-catching products for Bunny Williams Home. Only now the curious treasures are made in multiples. That way, design aficionados who fall in love with one visual delight won’t walk away disappointed when they learn that no more exist.
Whimsical metal tables that Williams has owned for decades (“the originals sit on my porch and are rusty and wobbly”) are now being reproduced as the Bradford side table, perfectly finished and smartly painted with gray awning stripes on a chalk-white ground. The handsome Kingston bench, made of teak, hybridizes the work of 18th-century British architect and designer William Kent, a Williams favorite, and the garden furniture at Versailles. Kent’s oeuvre also inspired the Howard console, while the chinoiserie fancies of Georgian designer Thomas Chippendale are echoed in the Lewis dining chairs. Finely woven rattan seating is part of the Treillage mix, too, as are drinks tables in the form of elegant pedestals, chic photophores, and the jaunty Brighton mirror that resembles a scarlet pagoda.
Future designs are already on the drawing board, and others are percolating. As Williams says, “I’m always trying to buy objects with character, and this iteration of Treillage allows me to create them too.” bunnywilliamshome.com
