FORWARD Thinkers

ROOMS WITH VIEWS

o matter where you live, it’s now possible to dine at home and take in views of pastoral English estates. Deer forage by meandering rivers, Regency-era houses loom in the distance on manicured grounds, and the rocky shorelines of lakes come into view. So detailed is a new series of hand-painted scenes that to look upon them on a wall is to feel as if you are fully immersed in these halcyon landscapes. Colonial Williamsburg, the world’s largest living history museum, and wallpapers, one of a series of the Williamsburg Mural Collection by Paul Montgomery, seek to bring narrative scenes into the home. Although Montgomery used Repton’s illustrations (found in Colonial Williamsburg’s library) as inspiration, he has reinterpreted those drawings, adding elements, color schemes, and borders. Given Montgomery’s ability to scale a mural to any size, a single dining room wall can easily feature a full panorama of the English countryside.