Email This Page
A Moveable Feast of Design
Lifestyle & Design: A Moveable Feast of Design
A party for a royal family, a Caribbean beach cocktail party, or an event for The Newport Film Festival 2009 are all in a day’s design work for the remarkable Richard Carbotti, the design genius behind Perfect Surroundings of Newport, Rhode Island, and Miami Beach, Florida.
Carbotti’s extraordinary gift of transforming environments of any dimension into fantasy worlds knows no bounds: he has created a southern California beach environment (complete with sand) inside a mammoth tent for The Carnegie Abbey Club, a draped fantasy land in the mammoth workshop of the International Yacht Restoration School, and a sea-inspired sculpture garden for the Newport International Film Festival at Easton’s Beach rotunda.
Says the ebullient and visionary designer, “I have a wonderful event coming
up in Bristol in September, the kick-off of the Anthony Quinn Foundation, for which I will use the prolific actor/artist’s own works. So far, the planning is for a large tent on the grounds of the Quinn home.”
A graduate of Parsons School of Design in Manhattan and the Newhouse School of public Communications at Syracuse University, Mr. Carbotti has employed his knowledge of two-dimentions visual, interior, and graphic design to produce spectacular events internationally. He has worked for the British royal family on the British syndicate for the America's Cup, the French Prime Minister on the America's Cup Victory Ball, Ted Turner on the United States' America's Cup Victory ball, and the RI governor for President George H. W. Bush, on his New England campaign.
For last Saturday’s NIFF party, he imported bronze statues of sea gods, one mammoth, and the Niff design team created an interior seating area with an Oriental rug and comfortable sofas. Perfect surroundings also created the lounge for Niff staff and filmmakers.
Perfect Surroundings, Inc. is a family affair, with sons Jordan Carbotti and Evan Carbotti professional partners in the business. The process begins with the three meeting as a group to evaluate the space, the clients’ needs, the style possibilities, and how to engage all the senses. “After we arrive at the concept, we go one step beyond for the ‘wow’ factor,” Carbotti explains. His relationship with vendors allows him to rent and rotate unique things. “we really own and store very little.”
His two favorite designs were for The Carnegie Ball in 2006, for which he created an entire southern California setting, complete with roller bladers, frisbee games, and a live volleyball game, and an event for the Joslin Diabetes Center at the Cyclorama in Boston. “We turned the enormous round space into something very Ralph Lauren.”