Tour Todd Oldham’s House in the Poconos
The wall of the megagallery: Atop the hand-painted walls, the living room is covered in art. by Wayne White sugar tit hangs above the flat-screen TV, here showing an underwater scene, and “the porcelain constructions on the far right are my mother’s,” says Todd Oldham.
Photo: Todd Oldham
The house is taller than it is wide. The living room is about 30 feet tall,” explains Todd Oldham of the “very strange” house he and his partner (in business and in life) Tony Longoria bought in the Poconos in 1997. “We got the house right after it was finished.” It was “a blank slate”, adds Oldham, “so I went to town”.
The house is part of his long-term plans, one of many overlapping creative endeavors he has engaged in over the 40+ years he has spent making the world a more interesting place to live. .
Oldham had his own clothing line in the 1990s (and hosted MTV shows stylish house), yet the unnecessary whims of fashion have always weighed on him. As he was putting the finishing touches on an intricate dress that Cindy Crawford will wear for her final fashion show, he remembers thinking: Oh good? Is this how you are going to spend your time? He decided it wouldn’t be: “I didn’t mind doing as much as I could, but for some reason that dress did something to me.”
He did all sorts of other things besides his fashion line, including producing monographs for AMMO Books on Alexander Girard, Joan Jett, Wayne White, Charley Harper and others and designing dinnerware and fabrics for Fishs Eddy, hotel interiors and children’s craft kits.
Now he turns to his past work. After years of experience in partnership with museums, “I knew how to manage an archive,” he says. “I wanted to make sure that if I wanted to use the countless things we made – hundreds of custom textiles, thousands of handmade buttons – they would be in good condition. I released it about a year ago and started playing. This led to his final attempt: Todd Oldham Maker Shop. He delved into his archives – buttons and textiles and uncut bandana fabric and custom silk prints and more – to create an enduring collection of clothing and home accessories. There are quilts made from fashion textiles, end tables topped with prototype tiles, and crocheted blankets constructed from hand-dyed yarns collected over decades so each one is unique. He will collaborate with artists such as his nephew Presley Oldham, Amy Sedaris, Larry Krone, Kathleen Hanna, Daniele Frazier and She Chimp, who handwrites the text for the website.
As for the house, it “was never finished,” he says, “because I think of design like gardening: you’re constantly doing something. It has been in a constant state of change, the design just keeps piling up.
The living room: Oldham and Longoria’s dog, Eve, stands on the back of a sofa partially upholstered in Pendleton fabric. The ottoman is covered with an Oldham tablecloth made for Fishs Eddy by Charley Harper designs, and the afghan in the corner is from Todd Oldham Maker Shop. The framed birds are also by Harper. The paint above the window is Woodrow White, and the paint with a red g is from Woodrow’s father, Wayne White.
Living room windows: Oldham created the crystal-adorned window treatments himself. The chimney in the center is blowing soot, so Oldham thought he would work it into the brick pattern he painted above: “And then I went on to do a background for this painting of Robert Hawkins.”
Stairs: “The stripes throughout the house are all painted in sizes of three,” Oldham says: “six inches, nine inches, and 12 inches wide.” The stairs lead to the bedroom to the left of the landing, which is surrounded by pink and purple stripes.
The FLOR the carpet continues throughout the house and in the living room. “It’s from their office selection,” Oldham says. “I got 18 different tiles of the most boring tans and grays and then put it all in. I took it out of the smallest part of the house – the carpet lines in the dining room, but throughout the house the rug is askew.
“It took me a year to do it,” says Oldham of the wallcovering which involved cutting out shapes from handmade Japanese paper and applying them to the wall which he painted with 20 coats of lacquer. . There’s a handmade scrub brush on the counter and an original Appalachian jug. The Russel Wright ceramic vase has Oldham’s mother flowers made from coral, real pearls and more.
Bedroom: “The quilt is an amalgamation of literally every year I’ve made clothes, with a piece of fabric from every collection,” says Oldham. “Our bedroom is kind of glued to the outside of the house, and we had a leak that damaged the paint and the wall. I didn’t want to put it back as it was, so I just put some dripping red plywood and added a few more drops.
Eve’s bedroom : Oldham entrusted this corner of the dining room to their dog; Eve’s water and food bowls are in the spotlight. The tree is made by a local chainsaw artist, while the owl and Thumper are from a “weird 1950s pressed cardboard Disney set,” he says. As for the painting of the woman’s head, there are six of them – each sporting real hair.
His studio: “My downstairs studio can also be an extra guest bedroom,” says Oldham. Both tables are from Maker Shop. “The tiles are prototypes we made for hotels, residences and shopping malls – some of them never went into production – so all the tables are unique.” Photo of Sharon Tate with a snowman was taken by Roman Polanski while filming for Playboy.
Photographs of Todd Oldham
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