Building Ralph Lauren's World

Courtesy of Ralph Lauren

Even people well outside the orbit of Fashion Week know that Ralph Lauren’s designs are more than the sum of their parts. Blazers, jeans, and leather loafers are all covetable items, but what Lauren does better than almost any designer in the world is bring shoppers and observers alike into a fully realized world of partly-imagined Americana. In Ralph’s landscape, elements of cowboy culture, ranch houses and alpine holidays mix freely with the trappings of elite sporting events, lending the humblest knit polo shirt an air of aristocratic ruggedness. 

How does he do this? One of the most tangible ways—apart from his cinematic ad campaigns—is through the physical settings he creates for his shows. And this year, The Hudson Company was part of the magic: Christy Turlington herself strode down a catwalk made from our own Brown Board in Lauren’s Spring 2024 Show in NY Fashion Week.

Courtesy of Ralph Lauren

This event marked a welcome return for Lauren, who according to Vogue had not been part of New York Fashion Week since before the pandemic. Loyal fans including Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Lopez, Julianne Moore and Diane Keaton flocked to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where they sat on an assemblage of charmingly weathered white chairs. Inside a barn-like structure with soaring beamed ceilings, Lauren had created an interior for the event modeled on his own Colorado home. Leather upholstery, wool blankets, and log-lined walls transported guests to Lauren-land as models presented gold-fringed caftans, silk gowns awash in vivid plaids, and embellished denim. 

The New York Times characterized the aesthetic “upscale saloon-themed.” After the show, guests moved into a candle-lit space behind a barn door where dinner awaited and glass chandeliers perched above sumptuous tables. This particular mix of weathered, antique materials and thoughtful luxury is very familiar to us at The Hudson Company, and we were delighted to play a part in helping to construct this singular New York Fashion Week evening.

Courtesy of Ralph Lauren

Courtesy of Ralph Lauren

Courtesy of Ralph Lauren

Antique French Oak

French vintners coined the term terroir to describe the earthy mix of climate, soil, and weather conditions that make wine taste the way it does. There’s no equivalent word to describe lumber, but the concept of terroir applies: every piece of wood on earth originally came from a tree, and that tree grew on a unique patch of soil in its particular corner of the world. The wind, weather, soil and sun make it what it is. That’s why this collection of Antique French Oak is so special, and couldn’t be replicated in any other place.

Sourced last autumn, this wood was salvaged from floorboards in farmhouses east of Paris in the French towns of Metz, Nancy, Dijon, as well as Lorraine and Bougogne in the region of Est. Dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, thesehouses were sturdily built and well loved. You wouldn’t find the kind of high-polish case furniture favored by the various Louis here; instead you’d be enchanted by the rustic simplicity and unspoiled beauty of the architecture and the surrounding countryside. Picture charmingly idiosyncratic paint colors, pictures and lighting fixtures just slightly askew, clean and fresh-smelling tea towels, and the promise of fresh bread each morning. So much history and daily life unfolded in these houses, and some pieces of it are coming to America.

New Life for a Hudson Valley Victorian

When David Ren bought Twin Bridges, his 1860’s Victorian mansion in New York’s Hudson Valley, it had seen better days. Weather, time, foreclosure, and even animals had taken their toll, and there was only one bathroom in the house that worked. An extension that had previously housed a 19th century kitchen was unsalvageable, which presented Ren and the team at Workstead with an intriguing challenge: design and build a new volume in its place that was both contemporary and contextual. Inspired by the quirky glamour of the Eastlake style home’s original bones, Workstead created a streamlined, two-story pavilion that echoes—but doesn’t mimic—the original. Where the front part of the house is painted ivory, its form animated by lots of crisp Victorian angles, the back part is curved like an Art Deco cruise ship, and its exterior is charred black.

Ren and Workstead had collaborated before: the firm helped give his Chelsea condo its distinctive character, and helped renovate his historic Charleston carriage house, which dates from the 1850s. There are elements of Workstead’s multifaceted practice to be found throughout Twin Bridges: there’s the architecture itself, the interior design, and the lighting, which includes unique fixtures like the eye-catching Orbit chandelier, which floats above a Nathan Lindberg cocktail table.

A color palette of jewel tones, such as Farrow & Ball’s Inchyra Blue, evokes the spirit of William Morris’s floral wallpaper, but instead of fussy, it feels relaxed and sophisticated. To complement the rich hues of the paint, furniture and textiles, there’s custom mahogany millwork restored to its original splendor, and The Hudson Company provided Bare, Ash flooring—a wood that has historically been used for building horse-drawn carriages, weapons, and even sporting equipment. The carriage trade may be a thing of the past in the Hudson Valley, but happily there’s still plenty of enthusiasm for the eccentricity and charm of Victorian high style.

Photography by Matthew Williams

Inspired by Vernacular Architecture and Natural Vistas in Jackson Hole

In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the vernacular architecture and the natural landscape are all of a piece: rustic barns from the late 19th century have gently sloped roofs that echo the forms of the majestic mountains surrounding them. The town sits in a valley tucked between the Teton and Gros Ventre mountain ranges. For architects Brian Messana and Toby O'Rorke, designing a house on Junegrass Road meant taking each spectacular vantage point into consideration so they could capture the views their clients loved best.

Like the landscape, which offers beauty in every direction, Jackson Hole itself is “365,” Messana says, noting that there are outdoor pursuits for all seasons here: skiing, hiking, fishing, and mountain climbing, to name just a few. So the house isn’t a ski lodge per se, but a year-round retreat that fits into a dynamic landscape that changes throughout the year. To contextualize the house, they chose cedar siding for the exterior to evoke the look of the 19th and early 20th century ranch homes that dot the area. But there are distinctly modern touches: the house comprises four volumes which are connected by glass walkways. Different parts of the home are clad in stone or stained cedar, mixing a palette of traditional and unexpected materials.

To bring a natural palette inside, the team chose materials that evince a sense of warmth. The Hudson Company provided Ditch Plains French Oak for the floors, which, according to Messana, captures the look and feel of wood in its natural setting thanks to its dimensions: 13.5” wide and up to 16 feet long. (“It looks like a tree,” he explains.) As one of the largest surfaces inside any home, he says, floors have a great impact on the whole interior, even if they’re subtle in color and texture. “We juxtaposed the floor with the Allagash wood from The Hudson Company which is gray, but not cold,” says Massana, adding that because each plank is about eight inches wide, and delineated by a micro bevel that creates a soft line, each piece is has its own character, and taken together the wood forms a beautiful textured plane.

Messana and O’Rorke drew inspiration from the local vernacular architecture in Jackson hole, particularly a group of late 19th century homes called Mormon Row which are the preserved structures built by members of the Church of Latter Day Saints when they first settled in Wyoming. But in reimagining these forms for a 21st century retreat, they pulled them apart, connecting each volume in the house with transparent glass walkways, and thus treading lightly on a landscape that has much to offer.

Photography by: Tuck Fauntleroy

History & Handcrafting on Crosby Street

Underneath a bank of skylights in her Crosby Street loft, with all her tools arrayed on a butcher block work table, artist Jill Platner makes her signature feather-like metal jewelry by hand. She’s developed a method for joining pieces of metal so that it drapes like fabric, and she has an acute feel for the material and knowledge of the tools of her trade. And she does all this inside a Federal style house in NoHo that practically radiates American history. Originally built in 1823 as a townhouse for James Roosevelt, an ancestor of FDR, in the 1850s the building housed a hospital run by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to earn a medical degree. With her sister Emily, also a physician (the sisters were the first and third women in America to earn medical degrees, respectively) Blackwell rented the building in 1857 and made it the home of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. With the help of wealthy benefactors, many of them Quaker, the Blackwells ran the first hospital in America that was staffed entirely by women. 

The hospital ran by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell that occupied the Crosby Street building in the 1850s.

Platner is fascinated by the building’s past, and her painstaking work renovating the building has revealed tantalizing pieces of its history. When she first toured it as a young designer in need of studio space in the 1990s, she noticed details like the chisel marks on the wooden beams—clearly the handiwork of a skilled craftsman—and recognized something of a kindred spirit. Platner made the light-filled top floor her studio, then expanded into the adjacent carriage house which is where she fabricates jewelry and makes large-scale metal sculptures.

The original flooring before being salvaged and milled by The Hudson Company.

In 2007 when she was preparing to buy her space, Platner discovered the story of the Blackwell sisters. Her top-floor studio was once the dormitory for the physicians and interns, while the lower floors were devoted to the maternity and illness wards, the pharmacy, and the waiting area. By 2012, when Platner became a part owner of the building, it was badly in need of repairs. There were bulging bricks and the roof was in dire straits. But she was committed to keeping intact as much of the building’s original material as she could, and that’s where The Hudson Company came in. Underneath some particle board, she discovered ten-inch wide boards that were original to the house. Well worn and quite uneven, Platner arranged to send the salvaged boards up to Pine Plains where they were milled and finished, then reinstalled. Now even and uniform, but still full of history and character, the floors are back where they belong on Crosby Street. “It looks incredible,” Platner says. “You can feel history in it.”

Jill Platner’s Studio. Photo credit: Aundre Larrow for The New York Times.

Rediscovering Antique Heart Pine in a Historic New England Textile Mill

At The Hudson Company, we reclaim heritage wood sustainably. Often that means salvaging it from beautiful places like this, the Draper Mill building in Hopedale, Massachusetts, where past and present meet. Though it’s quiet today, this mill—spanning over one million square feet—was once a major industrial hub that produced textiles on high-speed power looms. The Draper family built the mill complex in the 19th century using the preferred building materials of the era. One element in particular was exactly what we hoped we’d find when we visited: Antique Heart Pine timber. Milled and finished according to our exacting specifications, this wood will enjoy a second life as the fine flooring, paneling, and beams we are known for. Luckily, we knew just where to find it.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE TO SEE OUR ANTIQUE HEART PINE RECLAMATION.

Protecting your floors this winter

Now that the dry months of Winter are upon us, we’d like to remind all our clients and colleagues that it’s important to care for your wood floors by monitoring the environmental conditions in your home, office, and retail spaces.

The natural expansion and contraction of wood caused by relative humidity levels that are either too high or too low can adversely affect floors, paneling, millwork, and even furniture.

Here are a few easy ways to protect and maintain your floors this season:

1. Purchase a digital hygrometer

2. Maintain an interior temperature between 60 - 75 degrees Fahrenheit

3. Maintain an interior relative humidity of 35 - 55%

For more information, please visit the National Wood Flooring Association’s website, or contact The Hudson Company directly.

SCHOTTEN & HANSEN at The Hudson Company

The Hudson Company is pleased to announce our new partnership with the venerable German flooring company Schotten & Hansen, which produces responsibly harvested wood of peerless quality. Now on view at our New York City showroom, the Schotten & Hansen Collection for The Hudson Company combines two distinct legacies in the design world, providing American clients with seamless access to Schotten & Hansen products. This new relationship means access to an expanded range of top quality lumber for flooring, panels and interiors with the service, knowledge, and craftsmanship you already know.

Founder Torben Hansen has described his company as a “mediator between nature and architecture.” Established in 1984, Schotten & Hansen is the premier producer of fine wood for flooring, paneling and interiors in Europe. Based in Peiting, Germany, Schotten & Hansen makes its wood products “for life,” meaning that their wood lasts a lifetime, and that their natural approach to sourcing and finishing wood is as safe as anything you would eat or wear. No solvents or acrylic glues ever touch Schotten & Hansen lumber—the company finds all the ingredients they need in nature, using beeswax, minerals, and oils to color and finish their products. Like The Hudson Company, Schotten & Hansen provides the finest quality wood available to some of the most prominent interior designers and architects in the world. Schotten & Hansen’s project can be found all over the globe. Several recent highlights in New York include the new GOOP Store, the Crosby Street Hotel in SoHo, the Whitby Hotel in Midtown, and numerous residences designed by top architects around the world.

Schotten & Hansen Shrunk Face, European Oak flooring in Driftwood color at Goop Lab, NYC. Photo: Adrian Gaut.

Schotten & Hansen Shrunk Face, European Oak flooring in Oyster Dark color at The Crosby Street Hotel, NYC. Design by Kit Kemp. Photo: Simon Brown.

The partnership between The Hudson Company and Schotten & Hansen means access to a new range of top quality lumber for flooring, panels and interiors with the service, knowledge, and craftsmanship you already know. Schotten & Hansen’s practice of finishing wood by hand yields a product that’s designed to stand the test of time and age beautifully. Torben Hansen believes machines are “no match” for traditional German woodworking techniques. Their wood is the lumber equivalent of haute couture: you won’t find a more luxurious or perfectly finished product anywhere. A tree’s life cycle doesn’t end when it is harvested; if it’s crafted and finished in just the right way, its wood enhances the beauty of an interior and enriches the experience of those who live there for generations to come.

BROWSE OUR SCHOTTEN & HANSEN COLLECTION

The Finishing Touch on a New York Showroom

If Schotten & Hansen had a kindred spirit in the interior design world, it may have been Christian Liaigre, the French designer of furniture and interiors who passed away in September aged 77. Back in 2018, his eponymous firm opened a new showroom on 29th Street in Manhattan’s Nomad district, where his signature aesthetic—described in The New York Times by Penelope Green as “muscular and elegant”—was made manifest with flooring from Schotten & Hansen. Liaigre was devoted to fine craftsmanship, and admired the skill of accomplished makers. He designed interiors for Calvin Klein and Karl Lagerfeld, and he loved using elemental materials like bronze, stone, and wenge wood. He’s also credited with pioneering the concept of the boutique hotel, having designed SoHo’s Mercer Hotel in 1997—his first big project in the United States.

Liaigre showroom, New York City.

Hotel Montalembert, Paris.

Born in 1943 near La Rochelle, Liaigre studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. His inspiration came from an array of sources, many of which, like African art, had widely influenced French Modernism. He was also the grandson of a horse breeder, and growing up he studied the ingenious design and construction of saddles, bridles and stirrups carefully. He liked exposed joinery, and disliked applied ornament, which meant his interiors and furniture were in sync with the pared down modern look of post-industrial lofts in the 1990’s and 2000’s.

He designed the Hotel Montalembert in Paris for a 1990 renovation before moving to the United States, and there he made bold, eclectic choices like pairing carved African sculptures with Ancien Régime furniture. He was also famous for a stool he designed in homage to Brancusi’s “Endless Column,” a square block of wood that flares out at a dramatic angle at the top, forming a primitive seat.

Liaigre showroom, New York City.

Custom floors by Schotten & Hansen at the Liaigre Showroom, NYC.

Liaigre’s reverence for craftsmanship comes through in the design of his New York showroom. The floors are Schotten & Hansen’s Shrunk Face European Oak, which is a light, straw-colored wood (the color is custom, in fact) and adds a depth of natural texture to the crisp space, emphasizing Liaigre’s particular love of wood in all its subtle variation. The interior is meant to be a neutral setting in which to stage Liaigre’s pieces of furniture and lighting, which are invariably bold in design, at times massive, understated in color, and usually sumptuous in their material.

Shrunk Face Oak is now available in 20 colors at our New York showroom through the Schotten & Hansen Collection for The Hudson Company.

The Valley Rock Inn

View fullsize

The first summer that Lisa Bowles had her modern design boutique Roark open in Sag Harbor, she got a visit one day from Michael Bruno. Immediately sensing the aesthetic of a kindred spirit, Bruno invited Bowles to be part of a new online design community he was building at the time. (You may have heard of it: 1stDibs.) From that point on, with their shared love of offbeat glamour and a fondness for unusual vintage treasures, Bruno and Bowles have worked together on projects great and small. In 2016, Bruno invited Bowles up to Sloatsburg, New York, a small town just south of Tuxedo Park. Sloatsburg was a bit down at the heels back then, and the potential of the property that Bruno wanted to show Bowles required a bit of imagination and optimism. But knowing Bruno’s instincts, Bowles was sold, and she embarked on the process of helping him shape the chic and beautifully landscaped destination that’s now known as the Valley Rock Inn & Mountain Club.

Just 45 minutes from Manhattan by train, Valley Rock has an ideal perch in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains, and guests can explore the nearby Harriman State Park and Sterling Forest. There are four impeccably renovated guest cottages known as Waldron Houses that date from the mid-19th century. There’s an organic market, a 70-foot pool and outdoor lounge area, a fitness center with a spin studio, and a grand dining lodge that’s getting its final interior touches this summer. Bruno envisioned Valley Rock as an active getaway spa for people who love to hike and explore, so the look and feel of the place is sturdy and stylish rather than fussy. 

View fullsize

The design process unfolded organically, Bowles says, recalling that when she embarked on the project with Bruno, the property was in pretty rough shape. The Waldron houses needed to be gutted and replumbed. There were old cars on the grass, and there was only one structure that had working heat, so their first winter there, they used it as a temporary office. With their work cut out for them, it was reasonable to wonder: why this location? Well, Sloatsburg had seen better days, but the nearby towns of Suffern and Warwick both had quaint and lively downtowns with appealing restaurants and shops. And in general, the Hudson Valley was thriving: it’s close to New York City, and it offers cultural attractions like DIA Beacon and Storm King sculpture park, along with its unspoiled forests, mountains and streams. So despite a gritty exterior, there was every reason to hope that Sloatsburg could thrive too.

So Bowles went to work doing what she does best, and collaborated with Michael to source the objects and textiles they needed to make the Waldron houses feel smart and welcoming. With their shared portfolio of antiques from Roark and Michael’s own collecting over the years, they had a warehouse, and they’d effectively “shop their closet” to find what they needed. Working with her favorite upholsterer, Bowles created double-faced curtains so that the right side of the fabric would be visible from the outside looking in. Bruno had told Bowles that he wanted the space to feel like “The Hamptons in the Hudson Valley,” and it turns out that what that looks like is “plaid, but modernist,” Bowles says.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The building where the design team had their temporary offices was initially covered in metal siding and had a tar roof. But when those layers were removed, what they found underneath turned out to be a gem: a former fire station building with charming features and great light, which ended up being the only structure they kept very close to its original state. Bruno wanted to keep the building’s original interior beams, and appropriately enough, this is the building where Bowles used The Hudson Company’s  French oak for the floors, Homestead in 7” widths, and Shrunk Face in 10.5” widths. This building is the future home of one of the Inn’s dining spaces, which will have all the historic character of its fire station roots. And our flooring is very much in the spirit of the space. As Bowles says of The Hudson Company’s hand-milled wood, “every flaw is impeccable.”

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize