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AND SOUL
Robin Lennon Decorates From the Heart
Robin Lennon is a home designer. That doesn't mean she decorates houses. That's something else, something she tried years ago, but found it left her with a hollow feeling. Yes, she created beautiful rooms. But she felt they reflected her own tastes and whims rather than her clients dreams. Still with the eye of an artist, but now also with the mind of a psychologist and the heart of a philosopher, she works closely with her clients and students to create the kind of house that is truly a home for the heart.
Just what is a home for the heart? Lennon says it is a magical place that can encourage shy dreams, heal fractured souls and bring families closer together. In short, it is the idyllic image of everything a home should be.
Speaking with Lennon about home design is less a study in interior design and more a lesson in possibilities. It is important, she says, "to be in harmony with yourself and your surroundings and to pay attention to when our environment is no longer a good foundation and support of our hopes and dreams for the future."
Lennon, an exuberant woman who is both elegant and down-to-earth, has learned this lesson herself and is now helping others to realize the role their home plays in moving their lives forward. After a successful but unfulfilling start as a painter and sculptor, Lennon says, "the studio life of san artist tends to get lonely. I want to have more of an impact on people's lives." So in 1979, she opened her own company, Robin Lennon Inner Designs, and began to develop her singular prospective. In 1997, her first book, Home Design From The Inside Out, was published, and she is currently working on her next, Living a Magical Life.
Lennon insists
that a home can be a nurturing and soulful place. But for it to
become that, she says, the people living there must have a strong hand
in design. Lennon has 20 years of experience designing homes,m is
a color specialist, and is on the facility of the first accredited consultant
training program in the country for Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art
of object placing. Still, she says, she could not do her work without
the creative imput of her clients and students.
Innate and abundant creativity, says Lennon, exists within everyone. It
is the kind of creativity that came unbashed in childhood when the only thing
to contain it was a smock. It was only the later, color inside-the-lines
mentality that dominated and crushed this free spirit.
Lennon encourages her clients to get back to "the dreams and wishes we had
when we were little, the things that really mattered but were forgotten along
the way."
Hence, every home should be unique like a fingerprint, for only in the depths
of one's personality can its expression be found.
This is why no two of her designs are ever the same. A standardized or
impersonal approach, she says, can lead to "inner homelessness," her
phrase for alienation within one's surroundings.
"So make a commitment," she says, "think about the kind of life you need to be happy." Start by moving things around. Lennon considers clearing space a great way to readjust the energy in the room. "Holding on to clutter is a wy of saying that your past is more important than your future. Make room for your future instead," she urges, "and it will find its way to your home."
Especially in Manhattan, designing a home for the heart can be a challenge. Scarcity of space aside, Lennon says she finds that many people design their homes to gain others' approval. Or, if they seldom entertain and only use their home as a pit stop, this too is not utilizing a home to its fullest potential as a haven and inspiration. In designing a home, she says, one must search for the heart's true desire and working to make the home a reflection of and support system for this dream.
Lennon says she is unfazed by skeptics. "That's up to them. I've seen it work in my life and in the lives of my clients and students. I think as we come closer to the year 2000, people are becoming less interested in external status and want to get to know themselves in a deeper way. I'm a bridge to help people into the next phase of their life."
by Polly Gwardyak (March 11-17, 1998)
