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Talk-show Queen Cristina Saralegui goes Home The talk-show host turned home-furnishings designer knows what it takes to turn a home from flavorless to fabulous.  Casa Cristina: A new home-furnishings line has taken Cristina Saralegui out of the TV and into the living room. “All my life I’ve know the importance of having a personal style,” she says. Spanish-language TV talk-show queen Cristina Saralegui grew up in an ultramodern home in Cuba, wishing she really lived in the more traditional hacienda down the street. She calls that conflict schizophrenic. But really, even at a young age, she had a well-defined taste for the more the comfortable and rustic look that blends style with culture. As an adult, years after her family exiled her homeland, she built an island refuge in Miami inspired by her grandparent’s Mediterranean-style home. Inside, she made the space hers with folk art that reflected her European and Latin American roots. Life, she says, is eclectic, vibrant and full of contrast. Her home reflects her life. How did a television producer start creating a home-furnishing collection? All my life I’ve known the importance of having a personal style. They gave me the chance to explain about my style, my people and my market, and they taught me about good furniture and good price points. When we started this adventure, I was living in a 1932 Mediterranean house in South Beach, which was inspired by my grandparents. That’s what I base this collection after. What did your family surround itself with as you were growing up in Cuba? It’s so funny because in Cuba my parents lived about a block away from my grandparents. My grandparents’ home was the center for the family. They live in a Mediterranean-style home that I loved. It was the place everyone would go to on Sundays. We’d eat with the grandparents and then go into the pool. My parents built their own home, a very modern one with two floors, glass ceilings and a pond in the middle of the house. I grew up in a very modern house lusting for the Mediterranean house in the corner.  Landmark moments: Saralegui’s Corner Family Chest comes with eight attached picture frames, making it not just another piece of furniture but a portal to special memories. What do you enjoy the most about your role as a designer? I’m not really a designer. You know what I am? I’m a great editor. I worked as an editor-in-chief for many years. I have an eye for design. Always I had this creative part of me that I had to hold back on. I tried to create a certain environment in all our houses. But I’ve also been working my tail off since I was 16. Being in exile, I wanted to make sure I could do best for my kids. For me it has been like a process, like when you really love something but you can’t pay attention to it because you’re a producer, a writer, an editor. What mistake do you think people make when defining their style? The biggest mistake I see is that half the time their house is not theirs. In other words they take out the good dishes when there is company. There are entire living rooms that nobody goes into every day because it’s formal. You can walk into this house with tennis shoes, go into the formal living room and walk on the furniture. It’s got Scotch-guard. So I would say make it comfortable and use the good stuff on yourself even if you’re eating alone. How do you start creating a personal style on a budget? The most important thing on a budget is to get quality pieces at good prices. I’m not saying cheap. I’m saying good prices. So whatever you invest in is that, an investment. Get the big pieces and invest in them. Everything else falls around it. Where I come from, things are not disposable. My daughter still has her furniture set from when she lived at the house and that now is in her spare bedroom. Comfort, elegance and taste have nothing to do with spending huge amounts of money. It’s like art. We collect art. When we first got married and we didn’t have any money. We collected little Central American primitive art pieces. It was inexpensive but it made the house happy. I still have them. Now my husband collects Cuban art from the 1920s and 1930s, and that’s very expensive. But we still kept the little pieces. That’s the only way get tradition in life. You should not be ashamed of keeping stuff that is a little old and maybe a little chipped. |
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