Styleture

Custom book library at the W Residences in Hollywood, CA

Interior designers, homeowners and corporate designers spend months choosing the right furniture, light fixtures, wall color, fabrics and artwork for their projects; shouldn’t they focus equal attention on what type and styles of books belong in the library? Aligning book decor with furniture decor is gaining popularity now that people know about Juniper Books and its founder, Thatcher Wine. Working with designers or directly with homeowners, Thatcher Wine crafts custom libraries using a variety of book cover materials and books. In his world, you wouldn’t provide one without the other. He supplies the books that homeowners or corporations are interested in reading, and he covers them to match the most exacting standards.

One of Juniper Books’ custom libraries can be seen in the lobby of the W Residences in Hollywood, CA. Thatcher Wine spoke to us about his process in crafting this particular installation:

“The idea for the book collection at the W Hollywood Residences was to make it hip, luxurious, and unique – just like the property. The designer, Theresa Fatino, who I had worked with before as part of a collaboration with Philippe Starck for the Restaurant XIV in Hollywood, had put together a beautiful selection of accessories that would go on the bookshelves – everything from ostrich eggs to antique decanters and model cars. Taking inspiration from those eclectic and unusual objects, we set about selecting a mix of antique books from around the world in a variety of binding types. The majority of the books were vellum bound, which is antique sheepskin leather – which is quite rare as few books were produced in vellum. The books we selected for the project ranged from the ‘Memoirs of Casanova’ to a collection of philosophy in German. We kept the colors of the books very light, in keeping with the design of the overall installation and to make the shelves feel bigger to allow the objects to come to the forefront. In addition to the vellum books, we also used several feet of our custom fabric wrapped books in a light linen tone. I designed fabric wrapped books for commercial installations when the look of books is desired, but the titles are not as important. The fabric wrapped books are very simple and elegant and they are useful in commercial installations for filling up a lot of shelves at a reasonable price, while allowing other objects, accessories, and the nicer books (in this case the vellum books) to be the focal points.”