Lucy's Birthday Celebration Features Noted Interior Designer

Tickets are selling fast to the limited admission Tropicana Luncheon during Lucille Ball’s Birthday Celebration, and Eric Cohler is undoubtedly the reason!

The nationally acclaimed interior designer is not only a board member of Jamestown, New York’s Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center, he is also working on a book Learning from Lucy: Lessons in Interior Design to be published in 2007. At the 1:00 p.m. Friday, August 4 Tropicana Luncheon, Cohler will share the same sneak preview of his book concept that he presented at the Decoration & Design Building’s Designer Seminar Series in New York City.

Opened just last August, the new Tropicana Room is a reproduction of the most popular nightclub in television history, Ricky Ricardo’s Tropicana Club from “I Love Lucy”. Cohler was very involved in the décor for this exciting space that is located above the new Desilu Playhouse and only open to the public for occasions such as this special festival event. Participants will enjoy the atmosphere of the Tropicana Room, Desi Arnaz’s favorite meal, and a unique seminar documenting the influence of “I Love Lucy” on interior design from the perspective of a man inspired by Lucy.

A graduate of Hobart College with a Masters Degree in Historic Preservation from the Columbia University School of Architecture and a certificate in design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Eric Cohler is considered to be one of the country’s leading designers. House Beautiful has described him as one of the 14 “best of the best” in the “next wave of designers in America,” and he is included annually in their “Top 100” issue. He has received Traditional Home’s “Designer of the Year” award and has been recognized by his peers as “one of the 26 leading designers in the U.S.” In 2004, the International Furnishings and Design Association awarded Cohler with their Circle of Excellence Award.

Cohler’s work often appears in leading domestic and international periodicals and books, and is featured on television on a wide variety of programs including PBS’s Find! , CBS Morning News, CBS Evening News, and Sheila Bridges’s Fine Living. He is a featured designer on the Home & Garden TV network and a contributing writer for a number of publications including House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication, and The New York Times.

For tickets to this limited admission event, call or visit the Lucy-Desi Center Gift Shop, 300 North Main Street in downtown Jamestown, New York, (716) 484-0800 (toll-free: 1-877-LUCY-FAN) or online at their website.