Consider The Monumental Lamp

I love a lamp.

Sometimes I prefer lamps with a little story to tell, like the petite dog lamps I found for my restaurant, Little Jack’s, pictured below. When designing the place, I summoned the preferences of a fictional proprietor, Little Jack, who loved dogs, bought a little bar in Charleston after retiring from his boxing career, and populated it with dog and boxing ephemera.

In the dining room, we deployed tiny table lamps, which provides a little elegance to the otherwise old-school experience:

We also used them at Melfi’s, just across the street:

While these tiny lamps are appropriate for a small dining table, at home, I like what an oversized lamp does for a room.

My appreciation for the monumental lamp began several years ago, after a long weekend with my friend Carl Sorenson, founder of NANZ, at his house in Sagaponack. The place was decorated by Steven Sclaroff, a quirky, under-the-radar designer whose work I have always admired. I’ve written about Steven in the past - in particular his work for Andy and Kate Spade. He decorated both their beautiful New York City apartment, and their palatial Southhampton home.

Carl’s home is funky, collected, elegant, and honest; more importantly, there were oversized lamps deployed throughout, some with delightfully anachronistic shades:

The lamps, one could argue, were “out of fashion,” something you’d pass over in a junk shop without a second thought, like the lemon lamps with black shades, below.

I loved them. In particular, I find these kind of lamps (often Mid-century) a nice anecdote for the tidy, perfectly tasteful interiors I’m fed online. There’s no sex, no fun, no sense of adventure. I find it off-putting. It’s nice to see something a little askew, a little fucked up, maybe even a bit…ugly.

On that same trip to visit Carl, we stopped into Wyeth, the highly-regarded furniture showroom in Sagaponack specializing in the best of Mid-century design. There were plenty of oversized lamps dotting the showroom. I was sold.

In the years since, I’ve collected several large lamps and can confirm: they change a room, bringing a bit of drama.

The lamp below was a recent find, mixing a bit of Art Deco lines with a lucite base:

It replaces a massive earthenware lamp that sat in the same place for several years. We love it, but it’s in need of some repair and is being sent off to the local “lamp guy” for a tune-up:

And in our cozy room - a colorful den littered with toys and plastered in a Josef Frank wallpaper from Svenskt Tenn, I leaned very heavily into the “so ugly it’s cute” school of decorating, with matching lamps that looked straight out of my grandmother’s basement:

If you’re considering the potential of a monumental lamp, I suggest starting with Chairish, Etsy, or the dangerously addictive LiveAuctioneers, where deals can be had on these overlooked luminaries.

Happy hunting.