Guest Post: Niermann Weeks’ Eleanor McKay

I was flattered when Eleanor McKay, co-owner of Niermann Weeks, asked if she could write a guest post on this blog about their contributions to the Jefferson Hotel, which I already blogged about (right here), but I didn’t realize so much of the lighting and furniture came from this local source. I got a chance to visit them in person over the weekend when my husband and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary at Plume, the hotel’s unbelievable restaurant.

Take it away, Eleanor!

Will McGovern of the ForrestPerkins design firm supervised this project over 30 months, and he also specified almost 100 pieces of Niermann Weeks lighting and furniture. Just before opening day, he walked me through the Jefferson.  It seems like every place I turned, something familiar struck my eye.  Just like at our factory, the faux painters swarmed, here in the front lobby to create spectacular optical decorations.

Just inside the lobby, the hotel offers two retreats, the formal dining area and also the Quill Lounge, their wine bar. I chose the path to the wine bar, where Niermann Weeks Baladachino Ceiling Fixture acts as the landmark to its entrance.  Completing the installation, Tessie from our lighting studio re-strung the outer row of beads.  They’d gotten disturbed during storage, and her neck was plenty sore by the time she made the fixture perfect again.

Niermann Weeks also adds to the ambient lighting in the hotel’s exclusive dining space,  the Private Cellar.  As guests step into the space, our Column Sconce welcomes them to admire a fabulous wine collection.  I can just imagine the details of a treaty being hammered out here.

In the Women’s Rest Rooms, our Biarritz Sconces dominated.  We think of our lighting as jewelry for interior spaces, and this design always reminds me of an Art Deco brooch.

Mr. Jefferson’s Suite comes complete with a view to the Washington Monument.  Keep you eye focused inside, however, to admire our iconic Italian Chandelier as well as our Venetian Console coffee table, finished in silverleaf.  My husband, Joe Niermann, designed the Italian Chandelier in 1990 based on ideas from our twentieth anniversary vacation in Rome.  We had participated in a Bernini Festival, and practically gagging on the decorative excesses of the Baroque period.  Joe’s chandelier liberates the elegant internal skeleton from all the plaster and goldleaf and baby angels.