Old Westbury design house offers new spin

Don't let the name of this year's Old Westbury Gardens designer show house fool you. Christmas trees and festive garland are the subtlest elements in the "Home for the Holidays" event, which opens this weekend. If anything, the past is the muse. And reinventing something old is the guide.

REPURPOSE CREATIVELY

In his "Holiday Rhapsody" living room, Port Washington designer Lee Najman found a way to incorporate a 55-inch television screen into the design -- he created a program, which is for sale, that displays art when the set is off, although images of any kind can be used. The idea is to turn what would be a big black screen into an element that can change the mood of the room.

DIY tip "Take something that you would normally use for a function and turn it into a part of your design," says Najman. He offers the proverbial toaster as an example. "How pretty can a toaster be?" he asks. Instead, transform the appliance into a floral arrangement by affixing silk flowers to a tea cover with hot glue, staples or pins and putting the creation over the toaster.

GLITTER GLAMOUR

Sparkle makes a statement in Roslyn Harbor designer Mercedes Courland's snowflake-inspired bedroom, titled "Winter Wonderland." Rhinestones accent the headboard, bedframe, ottomans, draperies and pillows, but they are used sparingly. "This is an elegant way to display it in your interior," says Courland.

DIY tip Courland suggests using twinkling details in an architectural way, applying shiny baubles and beads purchased at a crafts store such as Michaels as trim on an ottoman or as border on window treatments.

METALLIC ACCENTS

Silver is fashionable again, says Mary Beth Donohue, a designer with Manhattan-based McMillen Inc. and a former Old Westbury Gardens trustee still on the garden committee. She uses it throughout the "Let It Snow" master bedroom: There's a hammered metal bed frame and drapery rods, a silver basket in the fireplace, a silver gilt frame, a silver mirror and more.

DIY tip "A lot of times it can be fresh and young and modern," Donohue says. And, she adds, it can work in any space. She suggests painting wood furniture silver or changing hardware.

SO MEDIEVAL

The "Winter Solstice" reading room is Brooklyn designer Albert Leon Sultan's playful and contemporary take on the Middle Ages. The Old Westbury native describes the place as "a feudal sanctuary" with white faux pelts, throne chairs and unicorn art. "Design references many sources in society -- politics, economics, social trends," he says. "What was key to medieval society was a sense of insecurity. There's a similar mentality today with a lot of social and political upheaval."

DIY tip Give old pieces of furniture new life, as Sultan did with the throne and wing chairs. He liked their lines so much that he upholstered them with white leather and trimmed them with white faux fur. A vintage rattan chair, once brown, was painted in metallic blue.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

This red zebra wallpaper comes with a story -- Hauppauge-based Scalamandré designed it in the 1940s for the dining room of the legendary Upper East Side Italian restaurant Gino, which closed last year. The fabric, trimming and wallpaper company reintroduced the pattern (now also available in blue), which Huntington Bay designer Susan Calabria of Noli Design Interiors, Scalamandré's design director, hangs in the children's bedroom, a space she calls "A Safari Christmas Holiday." Such traditional designs are making a comeback in wallpaper (and fabric, too), she says.

DIY tip If you cannot afford to redo an entire room in such a sumptuous covering, buy a roll and frame some of it. "It's like artwork," Calabria says. Or cover one wall -- the main wall, such as where a bed rests -- and paint the others. "I personally do this a lot," she says.

WHAT 2011 Home for the Holidays, a Designer Showhouse at Orchard Hill

WHEN | WHERE Opens Saturday and runs through Dec. 18, with an opening gala from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, at Orchard Hill, the former home of Peggie Phipps Boegner, a founder of Old Westbury Gardens, located at 71 Old Westbury Rd.

INFO Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day except Mondays and Thanksgiving; $25 or $20 in advance online; gala is $175; the home is not handicapped accessible; strollers and children under age 12 are not permitted; 516-333-0048 or oldwestburygardens.org.