Click here for past issues of the Globe Magazine, dating back to June 22, 1997

Letters to the Magazine editor:
Mail can be sent to Letters to the Editor, The Boston Globe, P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378. The email address is [email protected] or use our form.

No shades of gray

David Grose is Boston's point man on color.

Recently, a good friend whose decorating flair and taste I greatly admire repainted her living room a rich shade of red. She had painstakingly matched the paint to one of the colors in the curtain fabric. It seemed an excellent choice. But while the painter gave the room a fine paint job, and the color was exactly what she had specified, the result was a disaster. "I just couldn't live with it; the color was much too intense," she said. Before you could say Benjamin Moore, she had the room repainted a safe shade of off-white.

She - and I - wonder: How could she have been so wrong about the color? Of course, legions of us have made similar color mistakes. Even the pros get caught on the wrong side of the color wheel (we know of a few showhouse rooms that have been repainted at the last minute). After all the time and trouble we spend fretting over those little paint cards and fan books, how do we still fail to get it right?

According to David Grose, a Boston decorator considered an authority on color and paint, such color gaffes usually happen because people, my friend among them, fail to envision the complete room. Before you paint, you should pull together fabric, flooring, lighting, artwork, and accessories - a process that involves a lot of time and energy. But Grose believes the results are worth the effort. "A good color choice will last 50 years," he says, "and a bad color choice will also last 50 years."

This is especially true in the institutional environment in which Grose often works. Here colors are often chosen in a historic context and are expected to have longenvity. Since opening his Boston firm, DM Grose Company, in 1974, he has selected the colors and finishes and overseen the painting and refurbishing of such venerable establishments as the Boston Athenaeum, the former Metropolitan Center (now the Wang Center), and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. He has also overseen color and design work at Castle Hill in Ipswich, where he helped refurbish the dining room, and at the Stoughton House in Cambridge and Oaks Ames Memorial Hall in North Easton, both of which were designed by noted architect H. H. Richardson. In addition, Grose has picked the colors and the fabrics and executed expansive design projects for numerous country clubs, city clubs, yacht clubs, prep schools, and libraries.

Harry Lodge, who as president of the Metropolitan Center hired Grose to participate in the refurbishing of that theater district building, says, "This was a case where the Metropolitan didn't have funds for the auditorium. It was a mess. The putti, the plaster, and the gilt were falling down. David was able to create, by paint - gilded aluminum paint - and chutzpah a grandiose space, using limited resources and a good eye."

Lodge also admires Grose's ingenious work at Holy Cross Cathedral. "He created very intimate, peaceful surroundings by his use of color," says Lodge. "The main cathedral was painted in an army of green paint. By using gray, David simplified the space and made it lofty. He did this purely by the way he uses paint, color, and light."

Grose also has an extensive portfolio of residential interiors. Like his institutional clients, Grose's private customers want their paint jobs to last a long time. They usually forgo trendy styles for more timeless colors, furniture, and fabrics.

Still, not all his commissions have been staid. Grose's projects include the interior of a dog kennel and an Airstream mobile home as well as the refurbishing of Beacon Hill townhouses, historic homes in Boston and Cambridge, and a castle in Scotland.

"The more that you work with color, the more you realize how wonderful and exciting a house can be," says Grose. "Color evokes strong emotions, so it is important to use color in the proper setting. Blue on the north side of a house would give you a chill, which you would want to avoid, while warm colors get you going in a different direction."

A rich shade of red, for example, might enhance a living room. "But," notes Grose "if the same color is used in the bedroom, the poor inhabitant would probably toss and turn all night. Bedrooms should be peaceful - a pastel or a color taken from nature would be more condusive to sleep and relaxation."

On the other hand, a dining room can be more dramatic. There Grose is partial to colors that reflect candlelight, like a Chinese tea paper, a color he describes as aluminum with a gold-leaf wash.

Grose often paints vestibules and entrance halls a warm brick red, which, he says, gives a welcoming feeling, especially in a New England winter. Vivid yellow is just simple fun, but he notes, "It is hard to get an emotional response out of tan or gray, while orange often makes people feel nauseous."

Grose's grandparents played an enormous role in steering him toward his chosen profession. His paternal grandfather, Waldo Grose, was president of the Botany Company in New York, a large textile firm, and he shared his love of textiles and European travel as well as his interest in Chinese fabrics and chinoiserie with his grandson.

Grose's maternal grandparents, Katharine and Royal Leith, had a passion for historic design. They were influenced by Norm Morrison Isham, who, in the 1920s, was one of the 29 members of the Walpole Society, an organization that specialized in various aspects of collecting.

Isham, a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects, helped the Leiths purchase a number of 18th-century houses in Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The homes were slated for demolition, but the Leiths saved the interiors and incorporated many of their 18th-century elements into a new house they were building in Dedham. The house is no longer in the family, but Grose did inherit Isham's library.

As a young boy, Grose would keep his Grandmother Leith company as she drove around the new England countryside knocking on doors and asking homeowners if they had any furnishings they would like to sell. She had a budget of $50 a month for her furniture jaunts, and, Grose says, she acquired some wonderful decorative furniture as well as some important pieces such as the 18th-century Chelmsford lowboy that he inherited from her.

All the while, says Grose, he was learning "by osmosis" about the world of design.

Grose attended business school at Boston University, but instead of being drawn to finance, he focused on art courses. He knew that his interests were artistic, and he set his sights on the field of interior decoration. In 1972, the 22-year-old Grose began an apprenticeship at Roach and Craven, the oldest decorating firm in Boston and a recognized authority on American antiques.

The renowned owner of the firm, George Vernon Steele, trained Grose. "Steele was a master of subtlety," says Grose. "He was a man who had unusual talent and low-key grace - and a formidable knowledge of textiles and American antiques."

Grose was devoted to learning the business. "For several years, the weekly train fare, round-trip, to my home on the North Shore cost more than my $50-a-week salary, but I believe the more you learn, the more you might possibly earn," he says.

"The first thing I learned," he adds, "was that I was incapable of knowing everything in the business. This was a valuable thing, because I learned to keep my eyes open, and I learned to look. And listen."

After Steele's death in 1974, Grose went to work for the painting firm Edward K. Perry. Perry, like Roach and Craven, was legendary, having painted Colonial Williamsburg, the State House, the White House, and The Breakers, the Vanderbilt mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. At Perry's, Grose fine-tuned his knowledge about color and paints, learning about such techniques and finishes as dry colors, French polishes, and complex water glazes.

"I learned to break down a color's ingredients," says Grose. "Color retention is like the nose in the perfume business. When you have color retention, you start to see color in three dimensions."

While still working for Edward K. Perry, Grose opened his own decorating firm. His first jobs, he says, "were to paint large living rooms for little money."

Grose is a great admirer of H. H. Richardson, who designed Trinity Church in Boston and Oaks Ames Hall and the Gate House in Easton. "Richardson saw architecture as a collection of surfaces and textures," says Grose. "He gave interiors life. He had a sense of humor and he liked to provoke people. For instance, he'd paint the inside of a meeting hall a deep blood red just to keep people talking."

Despite his formidable taste, training, and know-how, Grose sets his ego aside when he is working for clients. "I get joy out of learning," he says. "Sometimes, a client's choice is just another way of looking at something. The whole point of a decorating project is to have fun. ... If it stops being fun, you should stop doing it."

David Grose's guidelines for choosing the right color

David Grose offers the following guidelines to help steer us down the right color path.

• Forget those little paint chips. Select at least three possible color schemes and make large enough samples to give you a clear idea of what the finished paint job will look like. Grose suggests using 3-by-5-foot fiberboards and giving them two coats of paint. You may have to buy a few quarts of paint, but the investment will save you time and money if it means you won't have to repaint because you made a bad color choice.

• Place the painted boards around the room at various times of the day and night to help you envision how the room will look in different light. Have the room lit just as it would be upon completion of the painting. So, if you are dealing with a room that is unfurnished, or not furnished completely, you may have to bring in lamps and jury-rig curtains for a true color reading. Hold your sample in a corner to see how intense the color will look.

• Grose says that color magnifies considerably when you put it next to a white ceiling, so he advises never painting a ceiling white. Instead, for the ceiling, use the color of the wall cut in half with white paint. To paint woodwork, lighten the wall color one or two shades. Always us a flat finish for the walls and ceiling and an eggshell finish for the woodwork. Keep in mind, a darker color will make the ceiling appear lower, while a lighter ceiling gives the illusion of height.

• If you love a color but are nervous about it, use a lighter shade.

• Since the floor is the next largest surface, Grose recommends it be a darker version of the walls. "The room should read floor to ceiling, darkest to lightest," he says. "The weight of the room is at the bottom, and it balances the room visually."

• Before you paint, try to envision the completed room - color, fabric, furnishings, and carpeting.

• Make a conscious decision about where you want your eye to go. For instance, if you want your eye to stop at a certain piece of furniture, cover it in a bold chintz rather than a color that will blend in with the background.

• Many people don't account for the effect that lighting fixtures have on a room. The light source is where your eye stops. Don't use a white lampshade unless it is a really spectacular lamp.

• If you are unsure of fabric for a sofa, use a plain fabric rather than a startling chintz. Put the "wow" fabric on sofa pillows. This is also an economical way to change the look from season to season, or from day to day.

• When picking colors, always consider the source of light for the room. For example, never use blue in a room that gets north light, which is a cool light. The blue will compound the feeling of chill.

• If the room has a lot of art, it can be a darker color.

• Take into account sightlines. How many other rooms can you see from the space? Make sure the color complements the other rooms.

• If a room is fairly monotone in color, paint the inside of the closets in a wild color. In a room that is painted a subdued tan, for example, paint the closets mandarin red.

• Always let children participate in the decoration of their own rooms. Gently guide them into making a good choice.

• Be aware of what is outside the window. It can be a simple decision to match the color to something outdoors such as marshes. On the other hand, if you live in a red brick building, you'll need to keep in mind that the room may take on a red cast.