Digging around in some old interior inspiration, I came across this photograph of a sunroom in Countess Dorothy DiFrasso’s Beverly Hills home by the renowned interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe. The wall mural entitled ‘Zebra and Black Panther with Cacti’ (1936) by Charles Baskerville was custom made for the home, and became the backdrop of many Golden Age Hollywood parties hosted by DiFrasso in the 30′s and 40′s. It’s amazing how modern this still looks today, and its relevance continues to inform style across interiors and fashion.

Get the look:

{01. Mia pants and Mia blouse | 02. Lion pendant necklace | 03. Gold claw post earrings | 04. Leopard phone case | 05. Curved animal box | 06. Calf hair sandals}

For more on Hollywood Regency jungle style, check out Mrs. Robinson’s lair from The Graduate

Photograph: by Simon Watson for House and Garden

The gentlemen behind Patch NYC recently launched their re-designed online store filled with curiousities of all sorts, but I am especially loving these hand painted ceramic animal plates with 22 kt detailing by Waylande Gregory.

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Animals rule…period.

1. My favorite wallpaper of all time: Zebras by Scalamandre made famous by Gino’s restaurant on the Upper East Side (now sadly closed) and Margot Tenenbaum’s bathroom. I have dreamed about owning this wallpaper for years! Check out Habitually Chic’s post about it here. The red colorway is the most popular, but I also love this black & gold foil version, and the Safari Brown version as well.

2. Woodsy post earrings

3. Antiqued giraffe tapers

4. White gold salmon leather drum, white hake leather cushions made with recycled canvas underside and white hake skin footstool from MUMO UK, spotted at ICFF this weekend. Normally, I am not in favor of skins but MUMO is working with recycled materials: “Waste skins from restaurants are bought and vegetal tanned into leather. All water and dyes recycled and re used.”

5. Bronze & wool sheep

6. Crocodile belt

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For more Metallics to Love, click here

I received this two volume coffee table book set of artist/photographer/illustrator Peter Beard’s work this past Christmas that has been incredibly inspiring and continues to captivate me. Spanning four decades, this tome chronicles his life and artwork in New York City, Montauk and Kenya through 784 pages of collages, photographs and interviews.

Born in 1938, Beard was raised in New York City, Long Island, and Alabama, and studied at Pomfret academy entering Yale University as a pre-med student. He quickly changed his major to art history, and after life-changing trips to Africa in 1955 and 1960, he returned after graduation and settled in Kenya on a property adjacent to Karen Blixen’s.

He began keeping diaries at a young age to chronicle trips, and throughout his lifetime, he has amassed these incredibly beautiful, fascinating accounts of life on two continents. I first found out about him this summer when I was reading I Married Adventure by Martin & Osa.

I don’t think I could ever tire looking through the pages and pages of handwritten diary entries, photo collages, hand drawn illustrations, clippings from the media, and photographs from Africa’s wild. Every time you look, you see something new.

Left to Right: A collage from 30 years in Montauk, NY. Beard working in his studio {for sale as of 2009}, on the lawn at Andy Warhol’s with Mick Jagger, Catherine Deneuve and Andy.

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Fore more, visit Peter Beard’s website. All images via Peter Beard 2008, Taschen

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I’ve got running animals with horns on my mind after seeing this coffee table shown above, which caught my eye a few years ago and I forgot about it until it popped up again in the new issue of Lonny. From the little information available, it seems to be a 70′s reproduction of an original Art Deco piece and is used quite a bit in current Hollywood Regency decor. While trying to hunt it down around the web, I came across these other pretty pieces with antelopes, gazelles and rams.

{Clockwise Left to Right}: bushbuck antelope vintage framed print, lalounis vintage 18K ram bracelet, gold plated antelope ring,  deco gazelle bookends,  prancing deer vintage pitcher and glasses set, antelope mother and baby statue from flickr, Derek Lam clutch with ram head hardware, ram bracelet | Roundup by Luster ©2010

I was introduced to the work of Vali Myers when I met Ira Cohen in his apartment on the Upper West Side around 2002. Amongst the myriad of his trinkets, photos, ephemera, and books were some framed photos of a woman with flaming red hair and bits of magically detailed drawings and lettering from envelopes she had sent. At that time, little existed online about her. Since then, a website has been established, and a memoir of her life was written by her friend and lover of 30 years, Gianni Menichetti, and published by the Golda Foundation.

Vali was born in Australia and fled to Paris in the 50′s hoping to become a dancer. She was the main subject of Ed van der Elsken’s book Love on the Left Bank which chronicles the bohemian lifestyle of Paris artists. Captured in a gritty snapshot fashion, his work influenced many photographers after him.

After her time in Paris, Vali spent the next 40 years in a wild canyon in Portofino Italy, where she created most of her illustrations and her primitive spirit flourished living among the animals in the canyon. Her favorites were her pet foxes. Her drawings were painstakingly detailed and some took two years to complete. She would draw all day by a faint light, then climb down the canyon walking to night clubs miles away only to dance all night and return to the canyon at sunrise. She briefly lived in New York at the Chelsea Hotel where she met Ira, and eventually returned to her native Australia.

Vali with a Python, Photo by Ira Cohen 1970 | Vali, Photo by Carol Beckwith 1965

Vali and Ira Cohen, photo by Carol Beckwith 1979

Vali would have loved this fox necklace by Alkemie

For more on Vali & her work, visit her website, or read Gianni’s memoir.

Right now I am reading Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure, the amazing true story of Martin and Osa Johnson’s fearless explorations of Africa in the 1920′s and 30′s. This hard to find title was buried on my amazon wish list for a couple of years, only remembered after recently seeing it piled on a table in a shelter magazine. After weeks of waiting, it arrived safely with a distinctly vintage book smell and the binding a bit delicate. The monotone zebra cover is so chic, definitely worthy of a place on the coffee table. The vivid descriptions are transporting me right to Africa with all its wild beauty and raw adventure.

jack’s camp

from Peter Beard’s collages of Africa

Ernest Hemingway via Hollister Hovey

luggage made by Hermès especially for Karen Blixen from Out of Africa

Manau and Teang moo by Carol Stevenson

This post is dedicated to my grandfather, James A. Rich, who in his own right was a fearless adventurer and would have been 101 today. He wrote this postcard to my grandmother in November 1943. Immediately following their marriage, he went to war not returning home for four years, and steadily wrote letters and postcards home to his new wife.

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we have been wanting a pet for some time and for one reason or another have decided to wait until it’s the right time. i want a little perky dog just… like… this…