Interior Design: The Best of the West

By Jenny B. Davis

NATIVIDAD RIOS Design Direction: Hacienda

Walking through Rios Interiors, owner Natividad Rios knows the history behind every ornately carved bedroom suite, every hide-paneled desk, every painting, every star-shaped pendant light. That's because he personally either designed or commissioned nearly everything on display in his expansive Stockyards store.

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Brumbaugh's Fine

Brumbaugh's Fine Home Furnishings

11651 Camp Bowie West Blvd., Aledo

817-244-9377

Rios Interiors

Rios Interiors

2465 N. Main St., Fort Worth

817-626-8600

The Cross-Eyed Moose

The Cross-Eyed Moose

2340 N. Main St., Fort Worth, 817-624-4311

Adobe Western Art Gallery

2322 N. Main St., Fort Worth, 817-624-4242

Bum Steer

2400 N. Main St., Fort Worth, 817-626-4565

Pinkie's Uncommon Treasures

115 West Exchange Ave., Fort Worth

A native of Guanajuato, Mexico, Rios has a network of artisans, artists and craftsmen across Mexico who hand-make pieces to his exacting specifications. For example, his signature "Thousand Roses" mirrors, rimmed with rows of elaborate silvertone blooms, are made for him by metalworkers in San Miguel de Allende, and artisans in central Mexico worked for five months to hand-carve and paint an elaborate, one-of-a-kind retablo decorative altar that reaches nearly to the ceiling.

Rios also takes frequent buying trips to Mexico to find antiques, meet with artists and source architectural salvage like handmade, centuries-old doors and thick beams in exotic and tropical woods, which he incorporates into tables and other large-scale pieces. He also brings back hides from Brazil and Colombia.

It's all part of a design style he calls "hacienda" -- a sort of old-world rustic that incorporates Western materials like hides, silver and turquoise.

Hallmarks of the look, he says, are clean lines that showcase the integrity and the history of the materials, like buffalo nickel nailheads on the trim of a captain's chair or the swirls of silver and turquoise used to fill natural divots in a mesquite. Some pieces, like the massive four-poster mesquite Rios Bed, can only be made once or twice a year because of the difficulty of acquiring such large pieces of quality wood.

But Rios loves the challenge. "Designing is the part I enjoy the most," he says. "I love thinking about something, talking about it with the craftsmen, then seeing the final product come alive."

LARRY BRUMBAUGH Design Direction: Old World

When Larry Brumbaugh designs and orders the pieces that fill Brumbaugh's Fine Home Furnishings, he's inspired by many things. He draws from the style of the European-crafted furniture brought to the West by early settlers. He relies on his knowledge of quality leathers, and he looks to current color trends. Brumbaugh also considers the scale of the homes he's built his business furnishing for the past 45 years -- stately addresses in Mira Vista, Montserrat, Southlake, Colleyville, and sprawling ranches from Abilene to Australia and everywhere in between.

The result is a custom collection that's a bit rustic, a bit traditional and, yes, says wife Sally Brumbaugh, who works with him at the store, a bit over-the-top, too. Like dining chairs backed with axis hides or executive desks as wide and solid as a Brahma bull.

Nearly all of Brumbaugh's furniture is bench-made in North Carolina, and Larry Brumbaugh personally designs many of the patterns stitched on the leathers, often supplying his own hand-picked hides. While leather leads here, the 50,000-square-foot Aledo showroom, which is built out with mock Old West storefronts and room vignettes, is also filled with home accents, art and hand-knotted rugs.

Everything in the store is designed to create a cohesive look, but it's also built to stand up to everyday life, explains daughter Elizabeth Brumbaugh, who helps her parents with the store's website when she's not studying or competing on the cutting horse circuit. "Ranches, horses, dogs -- we know our furniture fits this lifestyle because we live it every day."

BRENDA MCDONALD Design Direction: Vintage

With three successful Western home decor stores along Main Street in the Fort Worth Stockyards and a fourth opening this month on Exchange Avenue, Brenda McDonald could easily scale back her buying trips and simply stock her spaces with reproductions and mass-produced pieces.

But it's art, not commerce, that drives McDonald. She has an insatiable passion for searching out and acquiring furniture and collectibles that are unique and, above all, authentic. It's the real deal here, from the 1950s dishes, sturdy dining room sets and spectacular game mounts at The Cross-Eyed Moose and Bum Steer to the vintage vests and turquoise jewelry pieces that will be found at the new outpost, Pinkie's Uncommon Treasures, to the original paintings and photography sharing space with handcrafted antler and horn furniture at Adobe Western Art Gallery.

Brenda describes her eclectic mix as "the softer side of Western." It's a bit vintage, a bit rustic and a bit cowboy, she says, but with an added dimension of sophistication. She regularly travels the region, attending auctions, antique shows and estate sales, looking for amazing finds.

She and husband Jarrell, who manages the operational and sales side of the business, also breathe new life into old furniture pieces by repurposing them and adding modern elements, ranging from new hardware to updated upholstery. Jarrell's son, Jay, handcrafts the antler tables and chandeliers shown throughout the stores, and the McDonalds have a full-time taxidermist on staff along with a framer who is schooled in the art of displaying collections and creating shadowboxes.

While the inventory changes as often as the weather, one thing remains consistent: Brenda's discerning eye. "If I don't like it," she says, "it doesn't come into the store."

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