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" DYLAN LANDIS: Some women love diamonds, but your passions are chalcedony and quartz. And sulphur! KELEE KATILLAC: Light and color promote wellness of mind, body, and spirit. So when I decorate, I reference the most light-refracting sources of color: my gemstone collection. My palette is blue chalcedony, sulphur yellow, rose-quartz pink, and aquamarine. They symbolize peace, optimism, love, and harmony, respectively. That said, my work is a combination of the ethereal and the absolutely material. There are neoclassical elements with a hint of Hollywood Regency and references to fashion, history, pop culture, artists, and writers.  I see the fashion reference. Those yellow chairs look like they&amp;#039;re wearing little pleated skirts. And the windows look dressed for the ball.  For the drawing and dining rooms, I envisioned Audrey Hepburn playing a Jane Austen character. She&amp;#039;s costumed by Edith Head, and it&amp;#039;s a country house scene from Pride and Prejudice. The upholstered pieces and the ballgown curtains have couture details like &amp;#039;Audrey bows&amp;#039; and hand-pleated ruffling.  How did you do a rosy pink room that doesn&amp;#039;t swoon?  Pink provides an affectionate, feminine glow, but the weight of the reclaimed-wood table and the Empire-style chairs provides a masculine counterpoint. Mr. Darcy would be comfortable at the dinner party.  Aquamarine may be the color of harmony, but your bedroom is sexy! Sounds good for a bedroom...harmonious sex? As I said, my style is heaven and earth, the sublime and the decadent. I wanted the en-suite feeling of breakfast served on silver at a table by the window--the all-out comfort of an expensive hotel. The couture curtains reference Sophia Loren in an Empire-waist gown at Cannes in 1965. The crystal-pleating was achieved after weeks of hair-pulling &amp;#039;fittings&amp;#039; with my design assistant, Sherry Mirador.  That seductive headboard had to have a muse, too. The diamond pattern is a throwback to Dorothy Draper. As is the white. White is a great way to have detail while keeping it controlled. And I wanted detail in front of that aquamarine wall, so the bed would stand out as soft, sumptuous, and sexy. Because a bedroom should be sexy. Especially a hotel bedroom! You have a chandelier over the bed. In fact, you have chandeliers everywhere.  There&amp;#039;s one in my kitchen. There&amp;#039;s one in my closet. Two of my chandeliers hung in the Ritz-Carlton in Kansas City. It&amp;#039;s the drama--it&amp;#039;s the refraction of light through crystal.  How did the blue salon come about?  It began with that 18th-century Italian painting. I always dreamed of seeing it against sky-blue silk. I envisioned a salon around it with a slouchy, pillow-laden Italian sofa like Gertrude Stein would occupy, or Mabel Dodge Luhan in her Taos salon, or Henry James on his Venetian sojourn. Yet fresh and edited. Let&amp;#039;s talk about this yellow that keeps punching through. Sulphur is related to the discharge of negativity, so when you first enter, you see this positive sulphur yellow in the foyer. In the drawing room, I began with a French quartz gray, opal white, and blue chalcedony upholstery. That palette created order, romance, and history. It was so peaceful that I added yellow chairs for a jolt of optimism and ideas. Yellow became the color that would stimulate. Was it hard to find that precise hue?  It&amp;#039;s a custom color. I use ground crystals and various pigments, and I mix my own colors. It&amp;#039;s like creating a scent, a perfume.  You called your drawing room &amp;#039;quartz.&amp;#039; Is it important to keep one room quiet? Yes, it is. The drawing room walls are upholstered in coarse linen, and I wanted the detail of the imported French wall moldings. I wanted the room to have detail and grandeur and history. If you go too strong with detail, a room can get extremely busy, so I kept all the colors at the same value. You can have a lot of detail if you keep the palette fairly neutral.  Can one achieve color and radiance and polish on a tight budget?  I absolutely believe you can. The great Albert Hadley was known to pick up curb furniture! We&amp;#039;re only limited by our ability to imagine and execute. But it does require study and observation. You look, you think, you observe, you practice. Anyone can teach herself how to paint. Anyone can teach herself to sew.  What would you tell me if I were afraid of color?  What is the origin of the fear? Often it&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ve got a huge financial investment in this color, and I&amp;#039;m stuck with it.&amp;#039; Or it&amp;#039;s an aversion based on something that happened in your life. I&amp;#039;d talk you through it. We&amp;#039;d sit and mix colors, and we&amp;#039;d do color meditation. We would do what?  I do this with cancer patients and people in need, not just clients. Color and light nourish us, fight disease. I would simply guide you to ask your body what color you need to feel better--to feel well in every cell. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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