When I was young, my father asked Bimmie McGee, a
gifted designer who also happened to be a close family friend, to help him
renovate the old cotton office on Main Street in the Mississippi Delta town
where I grew up.
We were seriously hotel-challenged in those days, and he
needed a place where he could put up guests and business associates.
Uncharacteristically, he had complete faith in Bimmie, who was blessed with
a fine sense of humor and an unerring eye.
She had been one of the first female stage managers
on Broadway (The Miracle Worker was among her credits), and although she
knew everything about opera, when she decorated our house, she serenaded my
newborn brother with Hank Williams. And even though her politics were as
left-wing as my father's are conservative, he convinced her to design
the Mississippi float for Richard Nixon's first inaugural parade,
which she modeled after the last of Edward Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom
paintings. What I remember best about it was that the "pelts"
of all the animals were made of fabulous upholstery fabrics.
The guest apartments were a less whimsical matter but
no less chic. With the help of an equally talented architect, Bobby
Sferruzza, who frequently collaborated with Bimmie, she created a pair of
units on the second floor, each with two rooms laid out like double
parlors.
A small kitchen opened onto the front room, and a closet area and
bath with thick slate vanities was positioned off the other room, where
people slept. A courtyard with planters separated the two units, and an
ample skylight in each front room dated from the days when cotton was
spread out on tables to be graded.
Each bedroom had two single beds skirted
and covered like daybeds against the walls. In each front room, a built-in
banquette along one wall provided seating at the refectory table in front
of it, as well as drawers for storage. One wall was the original exposed
brick, and the wall behind the banquette was paneled in cypress, the same
material used to make the banquette itself and all of the cabinetry.
The rest of the walls were painted white. The floors were stained dark; the
fabrics were linens and cottons in shades of red, rust, blue, and ocher;
and the furniture and accessories were a mix of English antique, modern
(graphic rugs and freestanding ceramic fireplaces), and somewhere in
between (leather English officer's chairs).
I have to say that reading my own description, the
rooms don't sound like much -- but all manner of people, from noted
journalists to future presidents, passed through them, and every one of
them commented on the singular style. For almost 40 years, until the
building burned to the ground, the rooms never looked dated. You can say
that about very few places, but it was true of every room Bimmie touched.
