Talking Shop: Modern Manor
For the past 10 years, Ryan and Kylie Durkin’s Melrose District vintage modern furniture showroom in the iconic Paris Laundry building in Arizona has offered sourcing, refinishing and reupholstery, a huge art and decor selection from the 1940s through the ’80s, along with design and staging services. Now, they’ve expanded to become an all-encompassing lifestyle brand with the addition of Valentine, a Modern Southwest restaurant (the name is a nod to Arizona’s February 14 statehood) and a speakeasy bar in the building’s vault that was previously used to store fur coats. “The Modern Manor brand is ‘Eat. Drink. Shop.,’” Ryan explains. “We want to take what people previously knew it to be and make it something different. We want to tell the story of Arizona—-it’s a place that’s cool and fun and with the times, but the boom really began in the ’50s and ’60s. The dining and bar space are a nod to those origins, just as our showroom is.” The sophisticated cowboy vibe is evocative of rancho style, with wrought iron, saddle leather and oak in mid-mod shapes. Cleo Baldon-designed dining chairs stand out against a creamy adobe, terra-cotta and turquoise color palette with slatted walls that afford a peek into the showroom beyond.
