tonal vision

Interior designer Joel Woodard creates an inspiring study in gray.

"Show houses are a perfect stage for making us think about space in new ways,” says designer Joel Woodard. His Study in Gray, created for the Mansion in May Showhouse and Gardens—an annual benefit sponsored by the Women’s Association of Morristown Memorial Hospital—makes his case elegantly, in tones of black, white, and gray.

Schumacher’s Pyne Hollyhock chintz.

The canopy bed, fabricated by Two Worlds Arts, was painted the same color as the room’s trim. “It provided just the graphic quality I was looking for against the warm gray walls,” Woodard explains.

Art photography, Peter Margonelli. Paint-decorated floors, NY Surface Styles.

Woodard’s inspiration for the room—reminiscent of a silver-gelatin photographic print or art-fi lm dream sequence—was a gray-and-white chintz pattern recently reintroduced by Schumacher. Iconic designer Albert Hadley first used it in the 1960s for a client’s New Jersey house. “I met Albert’s client when she came to my shop/studio, and when I found out that her home had been published in the Parish-Hadley book, I obtained the scraps from her and asked my wife, Susan North, Creative Director for Schumacher, if she could reproduce it,” says Woodard. North opened seams from the scraps to determine the fabric’s original, unfaded colors and named it Pyne Hollyhock. Simultaneously traditional and modern, it’s a floral fabric for tailored spaces.

A custom sawhorse desk stands perpendicular to the window, an arrangement that opened up the small space and allowed for activities other than sleeping to take place in the room.

Flower photograph, Tom Baril. Gray paint, Benjamin Moore’s Iron Mountain.

Upholstery fabrics were kept to ivories. All bedding, upholstery, and window treatments: Chelsea Workroom.