Mosaic masterpieces

THE CATHEDRALS OF EUROPE, ESPECIALLY those in Italy, draw the senses in many directions--the faded frescoes on the walls, the sheer height and glory of the ceilings, the kaleidoscope of colors in each window, the gold fixtures, the scattered Michelangelos.

The one place I didn't expect my eye to wander--when I walked into San Lorenzo's in Florence, Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice, the Cappella Palatina in Palermo--was toward the floor. Yes, amid Italy's finest art and architecture, I often found myself looking at the ground. I couldn't get past the idea that I was walking on art, mosaic designs so unlike anything my American feet had tromped on before.

Not only were the designs, colors, and details inspiring, but the I feel of the floors was something I'd never experienced. Lumps in an American floor would be considered shoddy workmanship. Such bumps and crevices in Europe, however, are reminders of those who had walked on this special ground before me.

Saad Chehabi, who lives in Dallas, knows what I'm talking about. During a trip to Europe in 1992 with antique dealer Jean Charles Goule, Chehabi admired the floors in the famous St. Mark's Cathedral. Goule asked why Chehabi didn't bring the art to America. So Chehabi did, making it possible for all of us to bring a bit of the ancient art into our homes.

Chehabi's mosaic floor pieces can be found in the homes of Oprah Winfrey and Sylvester Stallone. One of his pieces was recently used to create a table in the royal palace in the United Arab Emirates.

But you needn't be royalty or a celebrity to enjoy art beneath your feet. When considering the decor of our homes, the floor is often at the bottom of the list. Chehabi is changing that, often leading the trend toward more interesting and inspiring floors.

Chehabi spent two years photographing churches and researching ancient techniques before opening the Dallas-based Ancient Venetian Floor Company. Using one of his designs or any custom design, he and his Italian workers can create a mosaic piece that looks as though it could've come straight from your favorite cathedral--complete with that "worn" look and feel.

Chehabi's hand-crafted mosaic designs are inspired by the Cosmati, a group of 12th- and 13th-century Italian artisans who created the unforgettable flooring for cathedrals throughout Europe. He creates two types of mosaics: the Cosmati mosaic, used for a formal look in a foyer, living room, or dining room; and the Roman mosaic, the smaller mosaic scenes we are more familiar with, which are often used on porches, in bathrooms, or along the kitchen backsplash. The pieces can also be used as tables and murals.

His antique finish--the way he creates the look of an ancient floor worn by acts of nature, churchgoers, and tourists--is a company secret. But the finish, which makes you want to shed your socks (and let your toes really experience the walking), takes as long to create as the mosaic itself.

"This is a new, spectacular art," says Chehabi, a native of Syria. "Floors have always been overlooked. But when you put apiece like this in the foyer or the living room, it changes the whole house. We're bringing ancient history to a new country."

Of course, in any remodeling job, you must choose the style and material of the floor. Most people simply don't realize how many options are available, nor do they see the floor's importance in bringing together a room. Some homeowners don't invest heavily in a floor because they can't take it with them if they decide to move. But experts say unique pieces will increase the resale value of a home and create something special that potential buyers will remember.

DALLAS INTERIOR DESIGNER RICHARD TRIMBLE says more and more people are requesting artistic floors, regardless of whether they plan to stay in their home forever or move on within a few years.

"Many people don't bother because they don't know how to work with floors." says Trimble, who often uses Chehabi's work for his clients. "They have no concept of how to lay out floors. But when someone has a 20,000-square-foot home, they want something different. They want a sense of uniqueness to the house. You can have apiece of the kind of floors you'd see at the Paris Opera or in St. Mark's Cathedral--in your home. It's a piece of art on the floor. It adds a focal point to the room."

Only in the past decade have homeowners given their floors proper respect, Trimble says. They are requesting more exotic materials--like lapis lazuli, a semiprecious blue stone--within their natural stone floors. They want transitions in the floors, taking them from hardwood to slate with style. Even wood floors have been taken up a notch with quartersawn oak, a treatment that shows off the grain of the hardwoods.

"I tell my clients to look through magazines or art books and see what they like," Trimble says. "Most of the time they don't know what they want because they haven't been exposed to it. But anything in the world is available."

Chehabi, in fact, travels the world for his materials. While the Cosmati who inspire him routinely ransacked Roman ruins for bits of marble and combined them with colored glass to form distinctive patterns, Chehabi takes a less destructive approach. He spends much of his time combing the world's marble mines for the richest hews and traveling to gem shows in the United States, Italy, Brazil, Spain, and Turkey for the most unusual semiprecious stones.