Welcome back to the decade awash in avocado green.
For House Beautiful’s 130th anniversary this year, we're digging into some of our favorite articles from our archive—from celebrity home tours (including Farrah Fawcett, Bette Midler, and more) to decades-old design inspiration that still holds up today. Stay tuned for more archive deep dives throughout 2026, and sign up for our newsletter to get the very best delivered to your inbox every month.
If the 1970s had a signature color, it would be avocado green. The pages of House Beautiful from that decade are awash in it—just look at Rosemary Robinson’s Florida home above for proof! The bedrooms featured in the magazine during this time often conveyed a sense of optimism, earthiness, and comfort tied to that particular hue, as though they could cushion their inhabitants through a period of profound social change.
And the change was real. The decade saw the end of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the rise of second-wave feminism. The Beatles broke up, while new genres like punk and disco began to take hold. Times were a-changin’.
The cocoon-like bedrooms of the era embodied a variety of motifs: Way before biophilic design was a thing, nature-inspired styles (featuring that ubiquitous avocado green) reflected a growing eco-consciousness. Many were outfitted in lush fabrics, deeply plush upholstery, and an abundance of four-poster beds draped in canopies. At the same time, there were outliers: one notably punk-leaning room by Richard Ohrbach and Lynn Jacobson embraced fuzzy gray monochrome, with flannel-covered walls and a platform bed that seems to emerge directly from the carpeted floor. Altogether, the designs of the ‘70s form a varied and expressive mix, mirroring the myriad perspectives of the moment.
Below, we’ve rounded up bedrooms from the House Beautiful archives spanning every year of the 1970s.
Described as a "bed-sitting room" in the April 1970 issue of House Beautiful, this peony-printed space is located in the St. Louis home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Yalem. "Designer Joseph Braswell married the palest Shell Pink with diminished tones of Leaf Green, struck two pings of bright color in Red Chippendale chairs," wrote editor Richard Fitzgerald.
The charm of early Americana inspired this bedroom by David Eugene Bell, Director of Interior Design for Bloomingdale's in New York. "Bright colors and patchwork patterns on the walls, the furniture, and the bed express the mood of rural America—a mood long since gone," wrote the editor of the August 1971 issue of House Beautiful.
"Snow white—lots of it—crisped with cool blue, green, and the tangy zest of citron." That's how editor Lester Grundy described this home, the work of designer Rosemary Robinson, on Florida's Gulf Coast, featured in our August 1972 issue. In this gulf-front guest bedroom, two faux-bamboo four-poster beds were painted "to approximate the misty blue seascape," while tall shutters "control light and keep the tempo cool."
"Cheerful!" is how one editor described this Manhattan bedroom featured in our September 1974 issue: "[It] reflects a yearning that city slickers often have for life in the country. And designer Renny Saltzman's friendly mix of floral patterns with tiny red-and-white checks, cozy stuffed chair, and diminutive desk offer a welcome refuge when correspondence or a good book awaits."
Designer Rubén de Saavedra was given "carte blanche with JCPenney furnishings" to decorate this home in Long Island, New York, according to House Beautiful editor Lester Grundy in our September 1974 issue. "Frankly feminine" is how he described the primary bedroom: "Giving the bedroom an unexpected scale, the ersatz four-poster hung with a hushed floral chintz and lined in a brilliant cyclamen pink. The four-poster is actually a tester attached to the ceiling with a wooden framework."
As the part-time home of legendary actor Henry Fonda and his family, this New York City townhouse was decorated in a stately fashion. "There's a definite reverence for traditional lines, fine art, and privacy in the Fonda household," said House Beautiful editor Marjorie Fox Hilton in the story from our April 1975 issue. A guest room—originally belonging to one Jane Fonda, the actor's daughter—epitomizes this: "No clutter, no strong abstractions, no clichés. It's all a pungent mix of classic color with family treasures."
Done up in "moody, summery colors set off by leafy greenery," as described by an editor in our September 1976 issue, this Manhattan bedroom provided a place of escape in the home of artist S. J. Berkowitz. Designed by James Le Castre, the room features a 19th-century brass bed hung with "creamy muslin summertime hangings," which are taken down in the winter for "a crisper, more glittering look to go with the brisker look of the winter city beyond the uncurtained windows."
"Color—clear, pure, and primary—highlights the Manhattan duplex designed by Richard Ohrbach and Lynn Jacobson, both ASID, of Creative Perspectives, for Mrs. Jacobson and her husband, Steven," wrote House Beautiful editor Ruth Weil in our February 1977 issue. The primary bedroom features flannel-upholstered walls and matching grey carpet—as well as a carpeted platform bed—under a Paul Jenkins painting.
"In the blue-and-white bedroom, Indonesian batiks blend with antique and reproduction porcelains and furniture," wrote an editor in our October 1978 issue about this Louis Bromante-designed bedroom in a "contemporary suburban" New York house. The owners requested "warmth and livability," which was met with loads of pattern, squashy upholstery, and multiple seating areas.
Jointly designed by the Dorothy Draper Co. and Carleton Varney Design Group, this blue gingham bedroom was done up for the Opera Society Showcase in Wilmington, Delaware, and published in our January 1979 issue. It's the original high/low: A collection of matching custom linens—dust ruffle, canopy, and upholstery—was created specifically to coordinate with the store-bought sheets from Carleton Varney for St. Mary's.
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