Palm Trees Have Quite the Design History

From the Victorians to the Golden Girls.

Today’s post — about the history of palm trees and palm fronds in design — was written my dear friend and fellow Smithie, Angela Serratore. Angela writes about design and history for many esteemed publications, including Dwell, The New York Times, The Strategist, Lapham’s, and others. Follow her on Twitter (x?), here.

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Blanche’s very palm-y bedroom on The Golden Girls.

In Edith Wharton’s 1897 guide to decorating homes, she suggested that palm trees are helpful in establishing the balance of a room’s design:

“If the pieces of furniture chosen are in scale with the dimensions of the room, and are placed against the wall, instead of being set sideways, with the usual easel or palm-tree behind them, it is surprising to see how much a small room may contain without being overcrowded.”

A Victorian entryway, via Winterthur Library.

The fact that Wharton accepts the use of palm trees as decor is significant, in part because she’s ‌very‌ particular about cluttering up spaces with unnecessary accent pieces, but also because it suggests that by the turn of the 20th century, the once-exotic palm tree had become, for well-heeled homeowners, a tried-and-true symbol of nature, domesticated.

A Roman chariot racer holds a palm front as a symbol of his victory.

The palm frond made its way into decor via the Romans, who believed it symbolized victory; they were quick to use it in art and architecture designed to celebrate a big win (lawyers especially loved palm fronds in ancient Rome). Also an important religious symbol for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, the palm frond as tropical, vacation-esque iconography came in the second half of the 19th century, as wealthy Victorians went on long-haul trips (or read books by scientists who went on long-haul trips) and needed something to show for it.

The Victorians discovered that with the help of greenhouses, palms could thrive in climates as un-tropical as Pittsburgh and could eventually be placed within the home, bringing a little bit of sunny glamour to Newport or Hudson.

The Merritt Greenhouse at Lyndhurst, circa 1870.

When robber baron Jay Gould bought Lyndhurst, his Hudson River-adjacent estate, he inherited an enormous and elaborate greenhouse, where he displayed more than 300 varieties of palm trees. Guests turned around and replicated, in miniature, Gould’s collection in their own homes. Palms, wrote Parker T. Barnes, a popular Victorian plant-advisor, were “among the best all-round house plants, of a purely decorative nature.” Easy enough to maintain, plenty of visual impact. The idea that a grand estate ought to have a conservatory was cemented with the debut of the board game Clue in 1943 — it's one of the nine official locations where the game's murder is allowed to take place.

Of course, having space or time or inclination to care for a bunch of palm trees wasn’t everyone’s truth, so it makes sense that the pattern of palm fronds soon started appearing in prints and on wallpaper: the look of vacation with no watering required. In 1937, legendary interior designer Dorothy Draper created Brazilliance, a banana-leaf print, for the Arrowhead Springs Hotel, and a few years later the Beverly Hills Hotel famously covered their walls in Martinique (by CW Stockwell), a similar wallpaper print that set lush, tropical green leaves against a sometimes-white, sometimes blush-pink background.

Beverly Hills Hotel, via Digs.

Already linked, in the minds of non-Californians, with the Golden State, palm trees quickly became a symbol of Hollywood glamour: Lining the wide, flat streets of Beverly Hills and covering the walls of its most famous hotspots, a palm was a cheeky way of saying, “I, too, love to lounge by the pool in a pair of fabulous sunglasses.”

Norma Desmond, the doomed silent film star played by Gloria Swanson in ‌Sunset Boulevard‌, lounges on a sofa surrounded by palms, a way to mark her 1920s and 1930s glamour (and glamorous home) as vaguely old-fashioned in the post-WWII era. Of course, everything old becomes new again, and in the 1950s, the palm motif made its way into furniture, from hand-carved chairs that now sell for upwards of $50,000 to a Hollywood Regency lamp with lacquered stems and gold trim.

The original Draper wallpaper (as well as its many copies) is still popular and beloved, perhaps thanks to millennials raised on reruns of ‌The Golden Girls.‌ Unlike the Victorians, who used plants and plant-print decor to show off worldliness, houseplants today are more budget-chic: a few hundred dollars spent on potted greenery can instantly transform a living room into an oasis. Provided, that is, that you can step into the unpredictable role of Plant Parent, one that requires a type of Victorian diligence.

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Hi, it’s back to me, Leo, founder of Schmatta. To cap off this excellent send, I’m sharing some palm-y decor recommendations. My feeling on the palm motif is that it’s difficult to incorporate without feeling mass or overly kitsch or sorority dorm room-y. (And really, no one needs that one CB2 lamp, c’mon.) Vintage is the way to go, and there are some truly excellent things out there that are indeed kitsch, but hit that sweet spot between hilarity and great design. Here are my finds, all via 1stdibs…no prices displayed because they are all stupid.

1950s Rattan Dining Chair Set

1970s Rattan and Wicker Palm Tree Lamp

Sergio Terzani Illuminated Palm Leaf Coffee Table

Pink Murano Palm Leaf Chandelier

Maison Jansen 1970s Palm Leaf Lamp

Salterini Palm Leaf Chairs

Mid-Century Brass Palm Leaf Floor Lamp

1940s French Palm Lamp

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Schmatta is written by Leonora Epstein, a former shelter pub editor-in-chief. Follow at @_leonoraepstein and/or @schmattamag. For consulting and collab requests, please visit my website.