The Italian Connection

Rosemary Gillett imbues her Florida residence with European flair.

Eleven years ago when this publication initiated its annual trips to Italy and the Milan furniture fair, it was a foregone conclusion that our views on design would be undeniably altered. What was not known, however, was the bearing that these trips would come to have on its participants, many of them designers themselves.

Would our enthusiasm for Italian design be catching? Or, were we to be the only ones taken by both the cultural experiences and the multifarious aspects of Italian design? We can't speak for all, but we can oroffer one striking case in point. For designer Rosemary Gillett, the yearly sojourns from 1983 to 1987 proved to be the impetus for redesign of her 3,500-sq.-ft. residence in Winter Park, Florida. "These trips are like continuing education for me," was her enthusiastic, unsolicited comment.