For the better part of a decade, interior designer, fine artist and founder and owner of the venerable Beaux-Arts Classic Products Melanie Kersher has been providing wonderful insight and marvelous revelations of classic interior design via her blog @ classicaladdiction.com. In her latest installment, she has done of the kindness of showcasing the JP Weaver Company; and specifically the talents of Senior Designer Stephanie Croce.
Melanie gives a thoughtful and complete history of the JP Weaver Company and it British origins; picking up with the transition of ownership by Lenna Tyler Kast along with her son Rob Tyler; JP Weaver’s current president and how both had the vision to revive the nearly lost art of producing ornate architectural moulding, reminiscent of the elegance of Versailles.
Soon after, Lenna enlisted the talents of her step-son Adam Kast to overhaul and revitalize the company’s plaster cornice crown moulding production. It was also at this time when Principal Designer Stephanie Croce joined the company and along with Lenna began the design journey of facilitating the expansive compositions and designs, The “Petitsin” Line, that has become a hallmark in the Architectural Ornament industry; deriving inspiration from 18th-century French interiors.
In tandem, as Melanie writes, “This team created The Two-Volume Petitsin Design Journal Set of Books, offering 500 pages (50 pages in color) of Secrets and Insights of ornamental interior design gleaned from their decades of experience and extensive research of historical Ornamental Design. These Journals will show you how, rooms from ballroom to bath, are detailed with ornamentation. A working textbook for Today’s designer, features 100’s of individual parts, both as individual elements and combined with other parts to create assemblies for ornamental ceilings and walls.”
And as individual tastes change, being ephemeral as they are, so must the industries and arts the cater to them. As Stephanie Croce observes, “Tastes have changed over roughly the last 10 years, from very ornate, dripping-off-the-ceiling decoration to very refined, almost minimalist designs.” Every zeitgeist comes and goes, as she reminds us, “but what’s really big right now are strapwork-style ceilings, using very geometric forms with interlocking parts.” The trend she says is definitely away from complexity but she still sees plenty of ornamental interiors. “We’ve done quite a few Adam-style ceilings,” she notes, “and we try to create whatever the client is envisioning, whether it’s a Rococo-style ceiling from the 18th century or Baroque or Neoclassical.”
Melaine Kersher’s insights and inclusion to her wonderful blog are beyond appreciated here at JP Weaver Company. You would be hard pressed to find anyone in possession of more knowledge and passion than Melaine in the arena of Classical Interior Design.