Decorator Mario Buatta embraces light and cheerful in South Florida

Although he is famously nicknamed The Prince of Chintz, decorator Mario Buatta describes himself as a devotee but not slavishly so of English Country style. He creates what could be described as garden rooms, spaces that bloom with color, often filled with flower-pattern fabrics.

I dont do flowered chintz in every room, he said in a recent phone conversation from New York City. I love the feeling of a modern, up-to-date flowered fabric. I dont start out to do an English Country look. I like it more citified, sophisticated and polished. I like making a room for living today hopefully cozy, comfortable, colorful, personable.

His goal for just about any room, he adds, is to create a living garden where people are living. Its never complete. Its constantly changing as people buy new things.

Buatta was regularly spotted in Palm Beach during the past season, in part because he was promoting a new book, Mario Buatta: Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration (Rizzoli, $75). At 432 pages, the hefty volume is packed with photographs chronicling dozens of homes he has decorated for celebrities and the society set. Buatta spoke about his work and signed copies during programs this season at both the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach and The Society of the Four Arts.

He described the book as the first and last compilation of his extensive portfolio of projects, which were published in decorating magazines over the years. Co-authored with Emily Evans Eerdmans, the book includes a forward by Paige Rense, who championed his work during her longtime career as editor in chief of Architectural Digest.

Hes known almost as much for his wit as for his decorating skill. If you cant hide it, decorate it, is a famous Buatta-ism. So, too, are these: I dont hate white houses; I just think they are boring, and If you dont understand color, youll never be a great decorator.

He readily acknowledges that his decorating preferences were influenced by firms whose principals specialized in traditional dcor Parish-Hadley and Rose Cumming as well as the English firm of Colefax and Fowler.

When I first saw a room by Colefax and Fowler, I went berserk, he said.

Advice for the island

Buattas sumptuous rooms, layered with antiques, textiles, trimmings and exuberant colors, look like theyve evolved over the years and for good reason, he said.

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Decorator Mario Buatta embraces light and cheerful in South Florida