Setting up his practice in the self-confessed "glam" capital of Houston was perhaps not the most logical step for 28-year-old decorator Brandon Fontenot. Born and raised in rural Louisiana, he says his love of materials “derived from the earth” stems back to growing up in a house where furniture lasted forever. “Nothing just went away,” he says. “Everything took on new life; if a dining table lost a leg, it would be turned into a coffee table.” Fontenot, who set up his practice four years ago, says his style is at odds with the aesthetic of the Texan city, “where everything is disposable.” This has, however, not stopped him becoming one of the most exciting rising-star creatives in the region.
The monochrome dining room pivots on a table bespoke-designed by Fontenot and produced locally in limestone and concrete composite. The abstract artwork is by London-based Polish artist Tycjan Knut.
This particular 3,700-square-foot, three-bedroom project is prototypical. The clients, a couple, approached him roughly six months after one decorator had finished the job. The walls had been coated in army green paint and had dark drapery to match, and the clients came to Fontenot seeking something brighter, more pared-back, almost Californian. The process was concise and the brief clear. “We went over a plan, a budget; and then they said, 'Go at it, we'll be back in August,'” he says of his clients, who spend much of the year at their homes in Palm Beach and Maine. “It was nerve-racking to have such carte blanche.”
His response was "organic Deco." A lo-fi mixture of timbe, jute, and wool is punctuated with sassier spurts of rich materials, as in, for example, a brass coffee table or a marble counter. Fontenot says particular favorites are a plaster coffee table in the living room that sits on black burr beams that are “a hundred years old” and a nettle rug from Nepal. The palette was kept simple; the walls were all painted white, with the exception of a monochrome De Gournay covering in the entrance hall. “That’s the most decoration in the whole project,” Fontenot says.
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The home, in a high-rise built just four years ago, has been encouraged to show its age—in marked contrast to the glistening newness of so much design in the city. He picks the brass coffee table commission as an example: “It has a few spots and things on it, which I always describe to clients as furniture going through its 'teenage years.' I always encourage them: Let it grow up and mature fully and it will be a beautiful thing that no one else will have. You create it as you use it. That's what I like.” Wise words from one to watch.