RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@ STARBULLETIN.COM A reader peers through a slashed page of a Nest magazine issue themed "slits and slashes," in which pages throughout were cut.

A decor quarterly explores domiciles
from London flats to penitentiaries

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By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

I consider my cozy condo home part library. Books, CDs, vinyl records, comic books and magazines are all over my place, in either semi-neat, organized piles on the worn, carpeted floor or in a couple of bookcases on shelves that may (or may not!) crack and collapse under the strain of bulky, accumulated knowledge.

My home is an accurate reflection of my personality -- not very ostentatious, pretty utilitarian. But I do enjoy visiting friends or interviewing people in their homes, seeing how they've chosen to exploit the potential for unfettered personal expression in their homes, whether their tastes run plain or lavish.

One of the magazines I subscribe to offers the first and last word on homes and how we live in them. Purchasing Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors, is like buying a home because, with a newsstand cover price of $12.50, it's a major investment!

And, like a house, Nest is a magazine that demands its readers to inhabit each thick issue, full of engaging and imaginative design, text and photos.

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@ STARBULLETIN.COM The lifestyle quarterly has won design awards for its innovative covers.

"We are a unique shelter magazine," the promo copy reads, "discriminating yet eclectic, where high-style London and Paris interiors meet igloos and prison cells on equal terms."

This high-quality publication has already won a couple of national magazine awards over the last couple of years for outstanding design and general excellence (under 100,000 circulation). There are article summaries as well, written in French, Italian and Japanese.

I admit I'm hooked on Nest; it's a weird hybrid of a fashion, fine arts, travel and "home and garden" magazine. Each issue is uniquely designed and assembled. The first issue I got through my subscription was wrapped in a single black ribbon, over a black-and-white cover of the U.S. Capitol building "dressed up" in a public mourning outfit designed by Rei Kawakubo.

The articles ran the gamut from how a poor, rural couple in an Alabama county furnished their boldly imagined butterfly-shape house to the detritus decor of a commune of young artists and musicians in Providence, R.I., to a phallus-filled outdoor garden on the grounds of the Bangkok Hilton to fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld revisiting his elegant childhood bedroom and study.

You get the idea.

Other issues have included one with a CD by New York "sound designer" DJ Spooky, a soundtrack to an issue that included articles about a pink stone house in the foothills of Morocco, an Australian theme home for seniors and "Mrs. De Menil's liquor cabinet" by playwright Edward Albee.

A "slits and slashes"-themed issue had pages with slits cut into them, with a cover story on prison death chambers and theme-related articles by film directors John Waters and Mary Harron.

Another issue contained a wallpaper sample and articles about an Amsterdam hotel that caters to gay males into S&M, and an account by Nest's managing editor of growing up in a large family -- the 12th of 17 children! -- in a 19th-century colonial house in Detroit.

NEST Nest lifestyle magazine contains a mad mixture of fashion, fine arts, travel and home and garden trends.

Needless to say, I've since re-upped with the lively Nest. The latest summer issue is dedicated to that disgraced queen of New York high society, Leona Helmsley. It contains the sheet music from a song in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," visits a government-subsidized Paris apartment decorated in hand-cut paper, investigates the conical dwellings of the elusive Chipaya Indians of Bolivia and talks to a Santa Cruz, Calif., homeowner who has turned his place into a 1940s-style detective office.

The subscription rate is $34 for four issues, and you can subscribe on the magazine's Web site at www.nestmagazine.com. Also available on the site is the anthology "Every Room Tells a Story: The Best of Nest," collected from the first 12 issues. If you don't want to commit to Nest just yet and want to look around first, Nest can be found at Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstores.

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