Atelier Viollet
Custom furniture
Jean-Paul Viollet established Atelier Viollet in 1986, but his family’s furniture-making roots extend back at least seven generations to alpine France in the 1700s. From his workshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Viollet honors those traditions by fashioning rosewood, Macassar ebony, or gouged oak into consoles, sideboards, cabinets, desks, screens, and beds. He also has an affinity for incorporating shagreen, parchment, mica, gypsum, and horn into his pieces, imbuing them with an Art Deco air that is amplified by old-world techniques such as straw marquetry. Viollet’s approach translates well to custom creations that he has fabricated for design collaborators including Busta Studio, Julie Hillman, and S.R. Gambrel. For Gambrel, he recently brought a game room in New York’s West Village to life by placing panels of mica between arches filled with églomisé mirror. atelierviollet.com
A game room adorned in panels of mica by Atelier Viollet for a S.R. Gambrel project.
Photo: Vincent Soyez
Chris Pearson
Painted floors
Rugs often lend flooring their panache, but Chris Pearson’s work illuminates how boldly painted patterns or classic faux marble and marquetry can create even more visual impact underfoot. Miles Redd has long turned to Pearson when one of his projects begs for a durable statement floor, but Nick Olsen, Kate Rheinstein Brodsky, Gideon Mendelson, Lisa Hilderbrand, and Todd Klein have all turned to the Roselle Park, New Jersey–based specialty painter to get the job done. Pearson gussies up walls and ceilings, too, but he has made flooring his niche since 1988, brazenly covering entrance halls and powder rooms alike with large grids of room-expanding checkerboards, elegant monochromatic geometric motifs, and vibrant, unexpected color combos. chrispearsonfloors.com
A Brooklyn family home decorated by Nick Olsen features walls custom finished by Chris Pearson.
Photo: Pieter Estersohn