Alexandra Nash finds the perfect partner in designer nestor santa-cruz  to help bring her vision of exuberant style to her
Washington, D.C.,  home

Alexandra Nash’s defining style moment came at the age of 10, when she was invited to tea at the summer home of American decorating doyenne Sister Parish, in Dark Harbor, Maine. “I was bowled over by her cot- tage,” Nash says. “She took the English look and amped it up. She had lemon floors and patterned wallpapers everywhere. Women on the island had made afghans in bright psychedelic colors like fuch- sia, yellow, and lime. I had a design epiphany.”

Today Nash, a writer known to her friends as Chi- Chi, has her own convention-free house in a leafy neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and provides her own surprises to visitors accustomed to the buttoned-down interiors that are so prevalent in the nation’s capital. Outside, the home that she shares with her husband, Peter Nash, a real-estate developer, and their three children looks like a tra- ditional whitewashed-brick, English-country-style house. But step inside and the entry hall’s gleam- ing lipstick-red console immediately proclaims, “This is going to be fun.”

“No swags and no Chippendale,” says Washington- based interior designer Nestor Santa-Cruz, who fu- eled Nash’s passion for mixing midcentury and classic elements. In the living room, Directoire side chairs with backs upholstered in Fortuny-green pull up to a Jean-Michel Frank parchment-covered cocktail table. Turquoise David Hicks table lamps flank a vin- tage bed in the master bedroom, not far from a Parish-Hadley Louis XV–style chair covered in vivid yellow silk. “I like rooms that have a potency in their atmosphere, that have an impact and create a mood,” Nash says. “I wasn’t trying to make each room differ- ent, but that’s how it turned out.”

The 1960s side chairs are from Sixteen Fifty Nine

Resource :

In study, vintage Tomlinson Furniture side chairs and lamp from Sixteen Fifty Nine (for information: 202-
333-1480; sixteenfiftynine.com). In entry hall, vintage ottoman and console from Sixteen Fifty Nine. In dining room, vintage Lightolier light fixture from Sixteen Fifty Nine. Reproduction Curtis Jeré Rain Drops mirror from Jonathan Adler (for information: 877-287-1910; jonathanadler.com). Raffia Weave wall covering; and Gold Leaf wall covering; both to the trade from Donghia (for showrooms: 800-DONGHIA; donghia.com). Oushak rug by Michaelian & Kohlberg, available at Timothy Paul Carpets + Textiles (for information: 202-319-1100; timothypaulcarpets.com).