Hue by Kelly Wearstler
Published by AMMO Books
Reviewed by Erika Heet

In her tome of many colors…

The latest from the Divine Miss W, Kelly Wearstler, the beauty behind a slew of Viceroy hotels, haute residences and svelte lines for such heavies as Bergdorf Goodman and Sferra, is Hue, her tome of many colors. Divided into “chapters” of complementary shades, three at a time, the book meanders through a garden of interior delights that share a common thread, beginning with Camellia, Wisteria, Vermillion, moving into Pyrite, Alabaster, Onyx, and on to Cerulean, Tourmaline, Peridot. She journeys through Jonquil, Citrine, Dahlia, and finally into Carnelian, Kumquat, Conch. The book is a lesson in color even from the first pages, which boast an alphabetical panoply of every shade available, and even some that are not. “I truly love all colors,” she exalts in the book’s opening conversation, in which she reveals her inspiration, contemplation and even a bit of method behind the dazzling madness.

By focusing heavily on a scant few designs, including on her family’s own home, Hillcrest Estate, as well as their Malibu beach house and select private commissions, Wearstler can slowly unfurl her spaces and showcase their exquisite details. Mixing humongous with Lilliputian and Classical with Pop, she never forgets that rooms are to be lived in, and never too seriously. A careful eye can detect signature Wearstler touches, such as starburst motifs, bold geometrics and, despite her unfettered approach, an often-strict use of symmetry — an absolute must for a classical devotee. (Fear not: She shatters classical allusions with fanciful humor. See the Greek sculpture in her studio office, hung with drapery cords, a lime-green wallcovering tucked under one arm and a single fringe of passementerie dangling from its raised hand.) Where she truly freaks freely, however, is in the designs she creates for her own family, where a fully checkered discus thrower enlivens her estate dining room and a bas-relief sculpture charmingly reminiscent of Wearstler and husband Brad Korzen in their California glory, complete with 1970s sunglasses, spices up the wall of their Malibu beach house.

Her public spaces — the Viceroy Hotel Miami, Tides Hotel South Beach and Bergdorf Goodman BG Restaurant — are the only places in which lucky design aficionados can soak up the Wearstler environment. Her beloved ultra-high-back tufted-leather chairs sit pretty in robin’s-egg blue and a sublime…let’s call it jonquil…yellow, en masse at BG. A rhythm of hot red (on tufted tub chairs) and shimmering gold (on Chinese-style drum tables) reverberates at the Tides Hotel South Beach Bar. And the psychedelic sway of the Viceroy Hotel Miami lobby, with its Pierre Paulin Ribbon chair swathed in shocking pink, obelisks set with turquoise, and little bejeweled bucket chair, tempered only by moody-blue cherry-blossom draperies behind a solid-wood valance, is a kaleidoscopic destination.

The whimsical waif who turned the design world on its head pours her heart and soul into every page of this book, down to the last vignettes filled with gold baubles and bejeweled boxes. She stands rigid on the cover, a design warrior flanked by vases filled with birds of paradise and puffy salmon — or are they carnation? — side chairs that evoke a just-lipsticked pout. In Hue, Wearstler shows that almost anything can be a color, be it storm, zinfandel or sunflower, and that with the right color, just about anything is possible.