House & Garden

2000 June

Buzz: The Design World Has a Case of Jungle Fever

by Newell Turner

Like a tropical storm blowing in from the Caribbean, jungle style is sweeping through the world of interior design…Martinique, a fabric and wallpaper pattern of large, lush banana leaves, has ridden several jungle revivals. First used commercially in the Beverly Hills Hotel, the wallpaper survived renovations in the 40’s and the 90’s ..This summer, the wallpaper can be seen on the set of MTV’s ‘The Real World New Orleans”. Monroe Kelly, a set designer, and Lee Ledbetter, an architect, put it in an old house on St. Charles Avenue, where a group of 20-somethings have been living under the camera’s probing eye – even in the banana grove ‘shagging corner’.