Local designer's drapery project at popular home show exhibit

Pittsburgh Design Fair for House & Garden

Sunday, March 9, 2008
By Karen Mansfield, Staff Writer

PITTSBURGH - Talk to award-winning drapery designer Judy Soccio for a few minutes, and it's apparent she loves her work.

The Monongahela resident talks passionately about all things draperies - hand stitching, hems, fabrics, technology that has impacted the industry, and especially historic redesign, the hallmark of Soccio's work.

Soccio's talent is on full display at the Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show running through March 16 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

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Soccio has teamed with interior designer Nancy Sakino Spears to recreate the bedroom of Childs Frick, son of coke and steel magnate Henry Clay Frick and Adelaide Childs Frick, for the home and garden show's popular American Society of Interior Designers room sets.

This year, ASID designers are reinterpreting rooms of famous Pittsburghers including Andy Warhol, David L. Lawrence, actor David Conrad and Rachel Carson, giving them a 21st century twist.

"I really specialize in and truly enjoy doing historic recreations in vintage or historic homes. It's just an area that's particularly fascinating to me. I can do something modern but prefer to do something old using modern methods," said Soccio.

She appreciated the challenges of the drapery treatment in the Frick bedroom, which is closed to the public although most of the Frick home, a chateau-style mansion called Clayton, is open for tours.

"We needed to make the windows sufficiently current or pertinent to today, yet maintain the historic integrity," said Soccio, who created a a lush, pleated drapery using masculine gold tone on tone stripe with ornate fringe on the edge of the drapes. The drapes are mounted on rings on a decorative rod and cornice.

"If you're into history, a drapery person can find things pertinent to the period that can be recreated for the contemporary home."

Soccio, a perfectionist, pored over historical books and photos, and combined high tech methods and old world hand stitching for the bedroom drapery.

"I enjoy the historical research and I love being able to apply modern methods to recreate a look that works well in the twenty-first century," said Soccio.

Soccio is recognized for her historic redesign. She recently won first place in the Curtains and Draperies category of the Ingenuity Workroom Competition sponsored by Window Fashions magazine for a historic window treatment - a recreation of a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design - she completed for a Foursquare home in Morgantown, W.Va.

Soccio's work will be featured in the spring issue of Arts and Crafts Home, available in April.

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Northwestern University, Soccio has worked in education, publishing, television production and theater.

She and her husband, stained glass artist Juan Rodriguez, own SR Design and use fabric and stained glass to design and create custom window treatments for residential and commercial clients.

Their studio is run from an 1852 Greek Revival home that was part of the Underground Railroad system.

For information on SR Design, call 724-344-4174, or view their Web site at www.wedowindowstoo.com.