[[
|thumb]]
Barry Darr Dixon (born 1959) is an American interior designer based in Warrenton, Virginia. He is the founder and president of Barry Dixon, Inc., formed in 1995, which specializes in high-end residential and commercial interiors. He is known for blending Southern style with global influences. [1]
Barry Dixon was born in 1959 in Memphis, Tennessee. [2] His parents were both avid art collectors. His mother was a designer. His father's work as a metallurgist for an international company moved his family to exotic locales including India, Pakistan, Korea, New Caledonia and South Africa, where he graduated from high school. The global influences of his childhood travels are reflected in his design aesthetic. [3] He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art History and Design from the University of Mississippi in 1982. [4]
After graduating, Dixon lived in Jackson, Mississippi decorating antebellum homes. In 1984, he moved to Washington, DC and worked for designers Carol Lascaris and Bob Waldron. [5]
Dixon founded his design firm, Barry Dixon, Inc. in 1995.[ citation needed ]
He has designed homes and showrooms around the globe including the home of Diane Sawyer, and the showroom of the Venice, Italy-based textile manufacturer, Fortuny. Other clients have included former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and financier and philanthropists Norma and Russ Ramsey. [6] Dixon also designed Merrywood Estate, the childhood home of Jackie Kennedy, [7] when he was hired by previous owner, AOL co-founder, Steve Case and his wife.
His work has been featured in magazines including Southern Home, Traditional Home , Elle Decor , Architectural Digest , House Beautiful , LUXE, and Southern Accents, which tapped him for its "Top Four Under Forty" list in 1995, and Veranda which named him 2010's Master of Design. [8] He has also been featured in more than a dozen other publications, including: Farrow & Ball: The Art of Color, Fortuny Interiors, Interior Design Master Class, Designer at Home, The Gentleman's Farm, and Inspired By: Kathryn M Ireland. [9] His designs were featured in Flower Magazine's Multi-Design Showhouse in September 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia's exclusive Buckhead neighborhood. In 2023, nineteen new pieces were added to Dixon's Arteriors Collection where they were shown at the largest trade show in North America, High Point Market in North Carolina in April 2023. This collection was also highlighted in Elle Decor's "Collab to Covet" feature in their April 2023 issue.
Dixon's television appearances include segments on Good Morning America , HGTV, and the Style Network. [10]
He was one of the featured speakers on the Uncovering Beauty panel at the C.Next Designers event in Cancun, Mexico in February 2023.
He has designed interior collections for companies to include a furniture and upholstery line with Tomlinson; lighting, accessories, and furniture for Arteriors; fabrics, trims, and wallcoverings for Vervain; and The Natural Color Collection by Barry Dixon for C2 Paint. [11]
Dixon's first book, Barry Dixon Interiors, written with Brian Coleman with photography by Edward Addeo was published in 2008. [12] A second book, Barry Dixon Inspirations, also written with Coleman and with photography by Erik Kvalsvik, was published in 2011. [13]
Michael Schmidt (1965–2010) was Dixon's life and business partner for over 20 years until his death. [14]
His current partner is TTR Sotheby's International Realty Vice President and Philanthropist Will Thomas, a former journalist with Fox 5 News in Washington, DC. Thomas serves on the board of the Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program which serves children with special needs and wounded service members among others. [15]
Dixon lives and works in his 1907 Edwardian estate, Elway Hall, located on 270 acres of farmland in Fauquier County, Virginia's horse country. The nearly 20,000 sq. ft. estate features 10 bedrooms and 17 fireplaces. Dixon is the fourth resident in the estate's history. Here he has raised goats, llamas, and hens, kept horses and bees, and tended an orchard as well as vegetable and flower gardens. The home was originally built as a wedding gift from industrialist and West Virginia senator Johnson Newlon Camden to his daughter Annie. [16]
Michael Graves was an American architect, designer, and educator, and principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years. Following his own partial paralysis in 2003, Graves became an internationally recognized advocate of health care design.
Fauquier County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 72,972. The county seat is Warrenton.
Warrenton is a town in Fauquier County, Virginia, of which it is the seat of government. The population was 10,057 as of the 2020 census, an increase from 9,611 at the 2010 census and 6,670 at the 2000 census. The estimated population in July 2021 was 10,109. It is at the junction of U.S. Route 15, U.S. Route 17, U.S. Route 29, and U.S. Route 211. The town is in the Piedmont region of Virginia just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The well-known Airlie Conference Center is 3 miles (5 km) north of Warrenton, and the historic Vint Hill Farms military facility is 9 miles (14 km) east. Fauquier Hospital is located in the town. Surrounded by Virginia wine and horse country, Warrenton is a popular destination outside Washington, D.C.
Mount Vernon is the former residence and plantation of George Washington, a Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States, and his wife, Martha. An American landmark, the estate lies on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, approximately 15 miles south of Washington, D.C..
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.
Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo was a Spanish polymath, artist, inventor and fashion designer who opened his couture house in 1906 and continued until 1946. He was the son of the painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal.
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) is the architecture school of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. It is regarded as an important and prestigious architecture school. It is also home to the Masters of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design, Historic Preservation, Real Estate Development, Urban Design, and Urban Planning.
John Barton Payne was an American politician, lawyer and judge. He served as the United States Secretary of the Interior from 1920 until 1921 under Woodrow Wilson's administration.
Alexander Jackson Davis was an American architect known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style.
Arlington House is the historic family residence of Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War in Arlington County, Virginia. The estate of the historic home along with a memorial to Lee are now the center of Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, where they overlook the Potomac River and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Waddy Butler Wood was an American architect of the early 20th century and resident of Washington, D.C. Although Wood designed and remodeled numerous private residences, his reputation rested primarily on his larger commissions, such as banks, commercial offices, and government buildings. His most notable works include the Woodrow Wilson House and the Main Interior Building.
Tom Dixon, OBE is a self-taught British designer. He is best known as the Creative Director of the eponymous brand "Tom Dixon", which specialises in the design of lighting, furniture, and household accessories.
Architect John Ariss (1725–1799) was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia to a family long settled in the Old Dominion. Two of his works have been classified as National Historic Landmarks. A rare surviving, documented example of his work is Traveller's Rest in Kearneysville, West Virginia, which he designed as a farmstead home for American Revolutionary War General Horatio Gates. He is also believed to have designed the Neo-Palladian estate Mount Airy, located in Richmond County, Virginia on Virginia's Northern Neck.
Lowell Blair Nesbitt was an American painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. He served as the official artist for the NASA Apollo 9, and Apollo 13 space missions; in 1976 the United States Navy commissioned him to paint a mural in the administration building on Treasure Island spanning 26 feet x 251 feet, then the largest mural in the United States; and in 1980 the United States Postal Service honored Lowell Nesbitt by issuing four postage stamps depicting his paintings.
Bushrod Washington was an American attorney and politician who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1798 to 1829. On the Supreme Court, he was a staunch ally of Chief Justice John Marshall.
Admiral David G. Farragut is a statue in Washington, D.C., honoring David Farragut, a career military officer who served as the first admiral in the United States Navy. The monument is sited in the center of Farragut Square, a city square in downtown Washington, D.C. The statue was sculpted by female artist Vinnie Ream, whose best-known works include a statue of Abraham Lincoln and several statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection. The monument was dedicated in 1881 in an extravagant ceremony attended by President James A. Garfield, members of his cabinet, and thousands of spectators. It was the first monument erected in Washington, D.C., in honor of a naval war hero.
Vlastimil Koubek was an American architect who designed more than 100 buildings, most of them in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, and whose total value topped $2 billion. Most of his work is Modernist in style, although he developed a few structures in other vernaculars. He created the site plan for the redevelopment of Rosslyn, Virginia, and his Ames Center anchored the area's economic recovery. He designed the World Building in Silver Spring, Maryland, which sparked redevelopment of that town's downtown; and the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C. In 1985, Washingtonian magazine called him one of 20 people "who in the past 20 years had the greatest impact on the way we live and who forever altered the look of Washington." In 1988, The Washington Post newspaper said his Willard Hotel renovation was one of 28 projects in the area that made a signal contribution to the "feel" and look of Washington, D.C.
Isabelle Jeanne Marie Alice Jacobs, by marriage, Countess Isabelle de Borchgrave d'Altena is a prominent Belgian artist and sculptor, best known for her colorful paintings, intricately painted paper sculptures, paper garments and wearable art. She is married to Count Werner de Borchgrave d'Altena.
Daniel Boone Clarke Waggaman was an architect, designer, and lawyer. He designed residences, apartments, commercial buildings, townhouses, and country estates throughout America, most notably the Washington, D.C., districts: Dupont Circle, Sheridan Kalorama, Massachusetts Ave. Heights, West End, and Connecticut Ave.