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If an Uzbekistani treasure - hound spree is n’t in your immediate future , not to worry : Michael Trapp ’s stick you cover . The Connecticut - based antiques dealer and architect regularly traipses the world ’s bazaar and antiques fairs , bring back Tsung Dynasty shipwreck pots , teak Dutch Colonial garden bench , and eighteenth – century Portuguese printed bed curtains , among other unparalleled find . Much of the bounteousness fill up his West Cornwall shop class , but a bonnie portion goes home with him , at least for a clip .
figure here are Green Glazed Bonero Pots ( $ 235/$265 ) . " These beautifully glazed 19th - and 20th - one C pots make enceinte container for yearbook or herbs , and add a nice accent color . " pic by : Rachel Schwarz . SEE MORE exposure OF THIS GARDEN
house , in Trapp ’s case , means house : He admits to a soft renovation compulsion , which is why he has three residences within a 12 - minute spoke . While each dimension has a distinguishable personality , all showcase a love of the natural public and a mobile link between interior and exterior livelihood .
A peaceful reflecting consortium in Trapp ’s West Cornwall garden is framed with Chinese Juipers . Photo by : Tim Street - Porter . SEE MORE picture OF THIS GARDEN
Trapp ’s original West Cornwall foundation , an 1820s Greek Revival , still houses his shop on the ground floor . “ It ’s quite churrigueresco , ” he explains , “ a cabinet of curiosities . ” This property , complete with a capricious Trapp - design garden full of lush planting and architectural fragments , became so overrun with visitors to the store that in the mid-’90s he relocate to a nearby ranch - mode mountain house . There he install multilevel Harlan Stone terrace , as well as a 900 - square - foot deck of cards that takes advantage of a salient view . Trapp ’s most recent purchase , a 1780s farmhouse , is the roomiest of the three , as evidenced by a pilot whale skeleton hanging from the great - way ceiling . “ It has that ‘ the castling is too big to render and they ran out of money a generation ago ’ palpate , ” he says .
Trapp boldly blend different styles and centuries in each of his dwellings . As he is fond of say , he sleep together to juxtapose honest-to-god with older . In West Cornwall ’s airy dining elbow room , for example , the mesa crafted from a 17th – century English pavement is topped with a Ming dynasty fishbowl and robe with an embroidered material from the -African Kuba tribe . A 19th - hundred French pendant hangs from the ceiling , and early twentieth – hundred ram skulls run along the wall .
pack with antique , Trapp ’s West Cornwall pool house doubles as a " small natural story museum . " Photo by : Tim Street - Porter . SEE MORE pic OF THIS GARDEN
The result is a spirited eclectic method , but it ’s outdoors where Trapp ’s genre blending rightfully shines . The West Cornwall garden , designed as a serial of rooms link up by small stone stairway and elegantly crumble balustrades , is full of surprises : terra - cotta olive crude oil jars line this course , while headless statues are tucked into that greenery . Weatherworn cobblestone path , place by Trapp , give a timeless atmosphere to the garden , and even the stone lap pool , installed in 2001 , feel one C previous .
Though his own garden is one of a kind , Trapp ’s aim sensibilities inform all of his labor , from historic Connecticut home to the interior court of Robert De Niro ’s Greenwich Hotel in Manhattan . select the photo gallery above to get wind how you may repair Trapp ’s unequaled style in your own backyard .
