Blanche Devereaux from the timeless show The Golden Girls has a pretty amazing house with classically 80's interior design. Everything is wicker, pastels, and...well, wicker and pastels. One of the two more iconic items in that house was a giant Chinese vase of Blanche's that Rose shot and killed one night, but that's another story. This post is about the other, Blanche's bedroom.
Blanche does love her banana leaves (Photo: The Original Beverly Hills Wallpaper)
Or more specifically, her fabric and wallpaper choices. On and above her bed is that iconic banana leaf design, turning Blanche's bedroom into something of a wild sex jungle.
Miami was a magical place in the 1980's (Photo: The Original Beverly Hills Wallpaper)
But where did it come from?
In 1942, interior designer Don Loper was hired to help decorate the yet to be built New Wing of the Beverly Hills Hotel. He needed something striking for the hotel's coffee shop, something to evoke the easy breezy attitude of this beautiful ocean-side location, and this instantly recognizable look was born. The pattern is called Martinique, and was custom designed specifically for the Fountain Coffee Room in the Beverly Hills Hotel, where it remains a fixture today.
Little has changed since its introduction (Photo: The Original Beverly Hills Wallpaper)
The wallpaper wraps around the entire restaurant (Photo: The Beverly Hills Hotel)
The descending staircase (Photo: Absolutely Fabrics)
It must be easy to clean... (Photo: Primitive Culture)
The hotel has even put together its own website highlighting the wallpaper and all the press it gets. They claim it to be the largest traditionally printed repeat in production today, and that the colors used are identical to the original product. Big dollar designers all over the world have latched onto it for their own clients, such as the Indochine restaurant in New York, so the hotel's claim that it's the most famous wallpaper on the planet may not be far off the mark.
The pattern is available to the trade from Hinson & Company, and is made to order. Who knew the Golden Girls had such worldly sophistication?! Let me know what you think in the comments!