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Barclay Butera on Pacific Design Center’s Westweek Panel “Healthy Living at Home”

LOS ANGELES, CA (March, 2007) – “Going Green” is the hot topic these days. And yet, when it comes to furnishings, great style has not caught up with the positive intentions of eco-mindedness. That is beginning to change. Renowned designer Barclay Butera this year provided completely healthy upholstery for a young couple’s home in Bald Head Island, NC. Style and elegance were not sacrificed, and the house is featured in the current March 2007 issue of Coastal Living magazine. At the Pacific Design Center’s Westweek, Barclay will be part of a panel focused on this home as an example of building a “healthy” – which does not always equate with “green” – home from the ground up. The panel, “Smart and Beautiful: Healthy Living at Home”, will take place at 1:00pm on Thursday, March 29th, in the Conference Center at the PDC. A wine and hors d’oeuvres reception will follow immediately at the Barclay Butera Home showroom, B465.

“Designer Celeste Wegman, who is a longtime friend and client, asked me to help her by providing ‘healthy’ furniture for this couple in which the wife has extreme, environmentally-caused allergies. Since I’m utilizing more fabrics that are green and sustainable, this was the perfect opportunity to learn about making my furniture truly ‘healthy’, too,” states Barclay Butera. “Just in fabrics, I find that I’m working a lot more with hemp, pure linens, raw silk, and raffia.”
Earlier this month, Butera also incorporated natural and eco-friendly elements into the table he designed in conjunction with Kravet and Tozai Home/Two’s Company for the annual “Dining by Design” DIFFA event in New York. The table space included a wall covering out of light natural cork fabric, a large mirror with a crushed bamboo frame, and a chandelier of recycled barrel casks.

Designing a “healthy” home means using “building materials that won’t release toxins (called offgas chemicals) into interior spaces. And no offgassing means no pollutants or odors that could adversely affect the health of homeowners,” states the Coastal Living article. To that end, the panel will discuss the difference between “healthy” and “green” and will feature these panelists in addition to Butera:
•Celeste Wegman, Owner and Principal Designer of Celeste Wegman Interiors (designer on house)
•Carol Baumgartel, co-Founder and Marketing VP of American Clay Earth Plasters, an award-winning, all natural interior wall plaster that was used in the Bald Head Island house. Carol is also an ASID chapter past-President.
•Monica Gilchrist, Coordinator for Global Green’s Santa Monica Green Building Resource Center
•James Schwartz, Executive Editor, Coastal Living, MODERATOR

“I’ve rarely seen the kind of reader response generated by our special section on healthy houses, and our article about Bald Head,” states James Schwartz. “Like all consumers, the four million readers of Coastal Living want product information and design inspiration. That’s why they turn to us, and that’s why we’re excited about Westweek. It’s our opportunity to share what we’ve learned about building healthy and going green.”

About Barclay Butera
Barclay Butera, Inc., Butera’s 13-year old corporation, is based in Newport Beach, CA, and entails the Barclay Butera collection showrooms in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, CA, and Park City, UT. Barclay Butera Home, Inc. products are distributed to over 300 showrooms and retailers nationwide and are represented in his own ‘to the trade’ showrooms at Los Angeles’ Pacific Design Center and New York’s Design & Decoration Building. Butera designs and manufactures his products in Los Angeles, CA. (www.barclaybuterahome.com)

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For more information about Celeste Wegman Interiors. Cheryl has an office in the recently expanded Celeste Wegman Interiors, Inc. and can be reached at P.O. Box 590, 10432 Highway 42, in Ephraim, Wisconsin 54211 until our move this spring to 3064 Church Street in Ephraim. Our phone number will remain the same 920.854.7522 or email cityfarmer@charter.net.