Local Designers Awaken Vacant Estate

A unique four-day extravaganza benefiting the Summer Theatre of New Canaan is underway at Le Beau Chateau, a 52-acre 1937 French manor estate, which has been shuttered ever since its owner, Huguette Clark, purchased it nearly 60 years ago but never moved in. The estate is now on the market with a $24 million price tag.

For four days only (until Sunday), the "Spring Awakening" event has transformed nearly every high-ceilinged room into a glittering feast for the eyes and imagination. It is a fusion of fun and fabulous elements connected by a common theme: Broadway!

Twenty top designers from New Canaan to New York City are showcasing their talents with tabletop vignettes inspired by Broadway shows.

The event, expected to attract design cognoscenti from across Fairfield County and the metropolitan region as well as everyday curiosity-seekers, is the brainchild of Summer Theatre board member Charles Pavarini, a designer with Charles Pavarini III Design Associates of New York.

Pavarini has been involved in numerous glittery design showcase events in New York and suggested to Melody Libonati, artistic director of the much-loved seven-year-old Summer Theatre, that one could be done in New Canaan with a theatrical theme.

The location was proposed by board member Jana Harvey, who also happens to be a realtor with Barbara Cleary's Realty Guild which holds the estate listing.

"This connection within the arts we hope will bring in a new audience and boost the arts in New Canaan," Libonati said. The whimsical creations, "make this house absolutely come alive."

At a $175-per-person preview Wednesday, the spirit was buoyant as guests gravitated from room to room to room to room and Broadway performers belted out show tunes on the spiral staircase.

Designers were having as much fun showing off their pieces as were the guests in evening attire.

New Canaan designer Priscilla Potenza, picked Hair Spray, one of her favorite musicals, as her design theme.

"The colors! It's fun, alive and fresh!" she remarked exuberantly after posing with fellow New Canaanite designers Courtney Mason and Stephanie Ladd Koch under the 1950s vintage hair dryers that anchor the tableau she created for the show.

"My children sing with Melody," she said, a reference to Libonati, by way of explaining her participation. "Besides, I'm having my own 'spring awakening' by coming back to what I do—design with purpose—after years of child-rearing and veterinarian-husband-supporting," said Potenza, who has a Master of Science degree in Environment, Textiles & Design from the University of Wisconsin.

Mason, who's the namesake of her shop on Elm Street, selected the film version of Funny Face as her muse.

"Who doesn't love Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire?" she asked rhetorically, showing off the wide pink-upholstered "love chair" and other designer furnishings of the mid-1950s including an Austrian resin chandelier and giant artificial dahlias in shocking pink and orange that she had assembled to perfect the knock-out effect.

For Olga Adler of Ridgefield, The Lion King was one of the most "visually arresting" musicals she'd ever seen.

It provided the theme for her tabletop creation consisting of mostly natural products, many African in origin, including "wind lamps" made of wicker, "tiger wood" (tree branches with actual tiger-like stripes), curly willow rushes and a table made from a mango wood trunk native to Southeast Asia.

Catherine Cleare of Catherine C. Cleare Interiors in Westport created a piece with real slices of tree trunk as stepping-stones to artworks and other treasures assembled locally, all inspired by On Golden Pond.

Dale Rowley, gallery director for Irwin Feld Design, cheerily recited the design elements of the Breakfast at Tiffany's arrangement.

Against a backdrop of doors, fabricated to resemble the doors of the famous store on Fifth Avenue, Rowley had set a mirrored table for a memorable breakfast, with foot-high champagne glasses, bountiful fruits, flowers, petit fours and bowls filled with silver-glittered baubles mimicking Cocoa Krispies. Bar stools were made to resemble an Audrey Hepburn-style hourglass figure.

Le Beau Chateau will be open to the public through Sunday, May 16, with guest lectures scheduled including Betty Johnson on the art of tea, Mar Jennings on creating a four-season garden and Judith Jones, editor of Julia Child and James Beard and author of My Life in Food. An outdoor "Secret Garden" boutique is also being held throughout the duration of the event.

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"Spring Awakening" proceeds will benefit the Summer Theatre's 2010 presentation of Free Shakespeare ("Henry IV") outdoors at Waveny Park and its Theatre for a Young Audience, High School Apprentice and College Internship programs.

Daily admission to the show is $30 and $40 for lecture attendance. For information and tickets go to www.stonc.org or call 203-966-4634.