Star Spangled Decor
American Design
“People decorate three times in their lives: The first time is when they get married and get their own place. The second is when their children grow up and they redecorate with better things. Then after 60, they do it for the last time and they make their home look the way they have always dreamed.” — Mario Buatta
In 1814 Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) (who can count amongst his descendants avant-garde American Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (1903-1989)) authored the now-famous words “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, which, since 1931, have been sung as the national anthem of the United States. In terms of art and design, however, the premise, increasingly, seems somewhat hazy as only last month the board of Tallahassee Classical School — a charter school in Florida’s state capital — pressured the principal Hope Carrasquilla to resign after three parents complained about a lesson that included a photo of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475-1564) sculpture representing the Biblical hero of David; that being the humble shepherd boy who slayed the Philistines’ most formidable warrior, the giant Goliath, to later be crowned king of Israel. Ms Carrasquilla fell victim to the board’s wrath, apparently as parents weren’t given advance notification that their children would be exposed to a male nude, with one particularly disgruntled and outraged curmudgeon labelling Donatello’s magnum opus “pornographic”. Indisputably one of the most famous works in the canon of Western art history, the sculpture was originally intended for the roof space of Florence’s Opera del Duomo, but, on seeing the finished piece, the city council were so impressed that they chose instead to display it pride of place outside the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria (replacing Donatello’s (1386-1466) bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes (1457-1464), which, somewhat more macabre, depicts the Israelite heroine in the throws of decapitating a drugged and captive Assyrian general). Removed from the church, David was no longer just a religious character, he became an allegorical figure for another underdog, Florence; a small city-state that, against all odds, had overcome aggressors from neighbouring territories, and as such, the muscle-bound strongman became a symbol of liberty and civic pride. Displayed in the Galleria dell’Accademia since 1873, the sculpture is not only significant as a masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, but also, as the very first historic symbol of humanism, and as such, the incident has left art historians around the world somewhat scratching their heads.
Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Galleria dell’Accademia, said “at first I thought it was fake news, [it was] so improbable and absurd”, going on to postulate that to think Michelangelo’s David could be considered pornographic means not only failing to understand the Bible but also, fundamentally, the very roots of Western civilisation. Chair of the school’s board, Barney Bishop III, in an interview with US news outlet Slate, said previous years parents had been warned children would be exposed to the sculpture, but that this year, the principal had failed to do so. He called it an “egregious mistake” and stated that “parents are entitled to know anytime their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture”. Bishop went on to explain, “We’re not going to show the full statue of David to kindergartners. We’re not going to show him to second graders. Showing the entire statue of David is appropriate at some age. We’re going to figure out when that is. And you don’t have to show the whole statue! Maybe to kindergartners we only show the head” (of course, determining an “appropriate age” might prove something of a struggle in a state where only recently governor Ron DeSantis (b. 1978) moved to expand a law banning public schools from teaching sexual education and gender identity). In terms of offending social mores, this isn’t the first time the statue has caused controversy — in 1857 Queen Victoria (1819-1901) gifted a plaster cast of David to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. When the illiberally inclined monarch first saw the towering hulk, she was so shocked by its overt nudity that a codpiece in the form of a figleaf had to be hastily fashioned so as to avoid her further blushes (this has since been removed). Not to digress any further, and getting back to the matter at hand, arguably, in terms of architecture and interior design at least, America is far less encumbered by the UK or France by its past and those associated societal rules and customs that can sometimes seem stifling in terms of breaking out of a prescribed or predetermined mould.
A sitting room designed by the inimitable American decorator Billy Baldwin
An interior by American decorator Billy Baldwin, who, whilst inspired by the European interiors, disdained the florid, baroque and rococo in favor of the clean-cut, hard-edged and pared-dow
Perfectly illustrative of this free-spirited approach are the interiors of Baltimore-born William “Billy” Baldwin, Jr. (1903-1983) who managed somehow, simultaneously, to be at once both a classicist and a modernist (objectively domineering English decorator David Hicks (1929-1998) might fall into the same category, though his career didn’t kick off until a full two decades later). Unlike his Continental contemporaries, Baldwin steered clear of traditional European decorating styles, reserving particular disdain for the floridity of Rococo and Baroque, instead favouring his own unique brand of hard-edged simplicity — often countered by graphic carpets and sensitively deployed chintz. He particularly admired the work of Frances Elkins (1888-1953) who was, quite possibly, the most sophisticated decorator working in America at the time. The fountain-head for Elkins’ immediately identifiable take on pared-back, understated grandeur was none other than French maître of minimalism Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941) (whose own ascetic inclinations were in part as a result of the mentorship of another great woman, patron of Modernism Eugenia Errázuriz (1860-1951)) whom Baldwin described categorically as “the last genius of French furniture” (Something of a controversial statement, especially had it been uttered around the gallerists of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, as it is, seemingly, at the exclusion of myriad modern masters including Paul Dupré-Lafon (1900-1971), Marc Du Plantier (1901-1975) and Jean Royère (1902-1981), as well as fellow American in Paris Eyre de Lanux (1894-1996)). The other French free thinker from whom Baldwin drew creative inspiration was not a decorator, but an artist, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) whose work made an early impression when, as a ten-year-old boy, Baldwin first encountered the maestro’s vivid canvases at the sprawling side-by-side apartments of Etta (1870–1949) and Claribel Cone (1864–1929) (the influential art-collecting sisters and friends of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), Pablo Picasso (1961-1973) and, of course, Matisse who referred to them affectionately as “my two Baltimore ladies”), crediting the artist with “emancipating us from Victorian colour prejudices” — and, it would seem, prudishness in the face of classical nudity — advocating his distinctive palette of bright, bold hues. If one looks at the entirety of his oeuvre, one can see Baldwin took these twin references and turned them into something altogether new; starched, polished, entirely un-contrived and, above all else, American. “We can recognize and give credit where credit is due, to the debt of taste we owe Europe, but we have taste, too,” Baldwin opined.
Many Americans considered comfort a far more integral part of design than their cousins across the pond, with both Elkins and architect Samuel Marx (1885-1964), for example, increasing the proportions of Frank’s undisputedly elegant furnishings for the more luxuriantly accustomed American posterior. Baldwin was, similarly, fond of deep-seated, feather-filled sofas and chairs, which, with a break from tradition, were upholstered straight to the floor (he believed too many naked chair legs left a room looking “restless”). Unlike a good many decorators, Baldwin kept as much of a client’s existing furniture as he could, championing an eclectic “mixture of all nationalities, old and new”, with the proviso that it all had to be of sufficient quality; as such, rather sensibly, he favoured contemporary design over antique reproductions, thus leaving room for the work of up-and-coming designers and makers. Despite having an infallible eye for scale, proportion and balance, interestingly Baldwin referred to himself primarily as a colourist: “I suppose one could say that I almost started the vogue for a clear, Matisse-like decorating palette,” he told Architectural Digest in 1977 (though seemingly in stark contradiction, at the same time, one of his favourite colours was “no colour at all”). His painterly ways were counterbalanced somewhat by his imperious nature, and once, for a palm beach apartment, having specified a very dark green, he handed the floundering painter a gardenia leaf that he had just spat on barking: “This is what I want the walls to look like, including the spit”. Baldwin’s signature decorating elements were, non-exhaustively, white plaster lamps, dark walls (his own Manhattan bachelor pad was lacquered a trend-setting high gloss brown), off-white rugs, corner banquettes, straw, rattan, bamboo and somewhat more niche, Parsons tables wrapped in wicker (“I certainly made a lady out of wicker,” he once quipped). On the flip side, and perfectly understandably, he abhorred clutter, satin and damask, ostentation of any kind, fake fireplaces and false books. Coming full circle, in terms of Real Blue Bloods of America (if anyone from NBC happens to be reading and looking for an addition to the Housewives franchise…), one of his most famous clients was the inimitable fashion editor Diana Vreeland, for whom he created her now iconic vermillion-hued, chintz-festooned Park Avenue sitting room — the perfect manifestation of a somewhat unusual brief: “I want my apartment to look like a garden: a garden in hell!” Undisputably however, Baldwin’s most extraordinary creation, which he himself considered the coronet on his career, was American composer Cole Porter’s (1891-1964) Waldorf Towers apartment; with its library of Directoire-inspired tubular brass floor-to-ceiling bookcase-étagères displayed against lacquered tortoiseshell-vinyl walls — which was truly masterful in its elegance and originality.
A home in Palm Springs c. 1958 decorated by American decorator Arthur Elrod, featuring an extraordinary rug with a raised, multi-colour abstract motif, photograph courtesy Harold C. Broderick/Arthur Elrod Associates, Inc. Collection, Palm Springs Art Museum
The sitting room of American decorator Arthur Elrod’s iconic domed, concrete-and-glass ridge-top Palm Springs home, looking out onto the pool terrace — designed by architect John Lautner and completed in 1968, photograph by by Leland Y. Lee
Another distinctly American genre would be the Palm Springs mid-century design style that came to be known as “Desert Modern”, the progenitors of which were a slew of architects including, amongst others, William Francis Cody (1916-1978), Albert Frey (1903-1998), John Lautner (1911-1994) and Richard Neutra (1892-1970). The conversation, typically, however, has excluded those decorators who worked alongside them hand in hand, the most famous of which was, undoubtedly, Arthur Elrod (1924-1974). An incredibly influential talent, he fell into obscurity, in part as a result of much of his work being disassembled in the 1980s and 90s as tastes changed, with much of his extraordinary custom furniture ending up in consignment houses and flea markets. Yet, despite his work for many years remaining unloved and under-appreciated, contemporaneously Elrod’s client roster was veritable who’s who of Hollywood A-listers, with names including Lucille Ball (1911-1989), Bob Hope (1903-2003) and Walt Disney (1901-1966), as well as Palm Spring’s founding families — the Bennetts, Hickses, McManuses and Nichols — and almost every captain of industry who had a vacation home in the exclusive desert resort. Elrod quite literally helped create the mid-century aesthetic that’s still so popular today, inspiring the sort of “California modern” espoused by Clements Design, Garrett Hunter and Waldo Fernandez. Elrod was also a staunch advocate of the new and the experimental, he underlit sofas and beds, poured surfboard resin over fabric to create countertops, pioneered the use of indoor/outdoor fabrics, floated sideboards on wall panels and somehow made Naugahyde chic (a trend which, thankfully, remains in the 70s where it belongs). “We are living now,” Elrod told Architectural Digest in 1972. “Homes should reflect the materials and craftsmanship of today rather than the past” (a lesson a good many “contemporary” designers should seriously consider taking on board). As such, wholeheartedly embracing technology, he had consoles inbuilt with speakers and embedded stereo and lighting controls into furniture; at a time when we can control our environment from iPads it’s perhaps easy to forget how radical his work was, but one should keep in mind the fact that it has, in essence, taken the world forty years to catch up.
Given his penchant for the avant-garde, it’s hardly surprising Elrod’s own futuristic glass-and-concrete home, designed by Lautner and perched on the edge of a mountain, like an eagle’s nest, overlooking Palm Springs, was used as the desert abode of reclusive Las Vegas billionaire Willard Whyte (inspired by Howard Hughes (1905-1976) and played by country music singer Jimmy Dean (1928-2010)) in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. In a similar way to Baldwin, Elrod embraced colour, but rather than advocating the sort of restrained tones used by Matisse, his interiors were more akin to the work of colour field painters such as Morris Louis (1912-1962), Clyfford Still (1904-1980) and Kenneth Noland (1924-2010) — covering walls in bright green vinyl, implementing violet-hued kitchen cabinetry and wall to wall vermillion red carpeting. Elrod and the Desert Modern architects with whom he collaborated transformed Palm Springs into a design Mecca, a veritable template for modern America, much of which still dominates contemporary interior trends. “Entertaining in the desert is much more formal now,” Elrod told the Desert Sun in 1962. “We are becoming more urbane and cosmopolitan with every passing season. And the décor of our homes reflects these trends.” Had he and his fellow “design heavyweight” William Raiser (who assisted on the interiors of Air Force One for the Kennedys) not been killed prematurely (49 and 58 respectively) when their car was forced off the road by a drunken teen — just as he was getting seven-figure commissions and AD was becoming a national magazine — it’s more than likely that rather than fading into relative obscurity for so many years he would have enjoyed iconic status during his lifetime. As events transpired, it wasn’t until the 1990s Palm Spring’s renaissance that interest in Elrod’s work finally reignited, with the realisation that it was he who swept aside the trappings of “Spanish Colonial” in favour of something lighter and sleeker, pushing the envelope of Modernism, replacing adobe bungalows with open plan colour saturated ranch houses, that entirely preempted the way in which we live today.
An interior by Mario Buatta, published in House & Garden in 1975, featuring purple lacquered walls, an abstract painting by Jonathan Edwards, chairs upholstered in Schumacher chintz, and a host of signature Buatta details, such as an estate duck and bowl of lemons, photograph by Horst P. Hosrt
The home of Susan and Donald Newhouse, Manhattan, designed by Mario Buatta, which, despite a smattering of the decorator’s signature chintz, remains elegant and entirely of its time, published in House & Garden in 1982, photograph by William Steele
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there was, of course, storied decorator and society figure Elsie de Wolfe (1859–1950), a self-pronounced “rebel in an ugly world” who in 1904 — after a short-lived career as a New York City stage actress — embraced her true passion, decorating, and in doing so, advocated a stripped back style based around classic French antiques, animal prints, chintz and chinoiserie; becoming enamoured of neutrals, reputedly, when she first saw the Parthenon, exclaiming, “It’s beige! Just my colour!” De Wolfe has been credited as America’s first interior designer (in the sense we understand it today), and her inimitable style undoubtedly influenced the man who would become known as the Prince of Chintz, Mario Buatta (1935-2018). Steering clear of his predecessors’ continental inclinations, Buatta instead favoured flower-festooned interiors inspired by the English countryside, or rather, its sprawling aristocratic estates (an aesthetic inclination which, following Madonna’s (b. 1958) Ashcombe House phase, can seemingly sneak up on even the most staunch devotees of contemporary culture — perhaps even arch-minimalist John Pawson (b. 1949) might one day wake up with an unshakeable urge to trim the windows of his monastic Cotswolds farmhouse with cabbage rose ruffle pelmets). Unlike decorators such as John Fowler (1906-1977) and Nancy Lancaster (1897-1994), Buatta’s Anglo-American interpretation was far more radical in its gusto and use of bold, saturated colour because, as he explained, quite simply, “brighter colours look better” in America. Buatta’s immediately identifiable style might best be described as Brideshead on acid — of his many foibles, he had a penchant for hanging pictures from big blousy silk bows, forests of blue and white porcelain displayed atop elaborately carved wall brackets, hand-painted botanical cushions by George Oakes and, somewhat more eccentric, gilt-framed portraits of dogs.
Toward the end of his career, Buatta broke away from his typically ostentatious approach when he was hired by glass-shattering pop songstress Mariah Carey (b. 1969) to decorate her cavernous Manhattan triplex; the result was startlingly pared back, a melange of gold, peach, silver and crystal that could have been the setting for a 1950s film noir. Its restrained opulence redefined Buatta’s standing in the profession, bringing him a newfound respect and opening up a previously untapped clientele, as well as the dubious accolade of being the only designer to see the same project featured in the pages of Architectural Digest (2001) and on cult prime time classic MTV Cribs. Aside from decorating, Buatta was an early proponent of licensing, emblazoning his name on anything and everything from furniture to lighting, bed linens, wall coverings and even a telephone (though he stopped short of Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani (b. 1932) who in the 1980s put his name to a plastic toilet seat), which he drolly referred to as “my pension plan,” adding “I don’t feature working seven days a week—days and nights—for the rest of my life”. Such commercially driven endeavours infuriated fellow decorator Dorothy “Sister” Parish (1910-1994) to the extent that in the cigarette smoke-saturated midsts of a cocktail party thrown at her Upper East Side maisonette, she accused “Mario of being practically a whore”, dealer John Rosselli recounted in Sister Parish: The Life of the Legendary American Interior Designer (Vendome). “Sister was saying, ‘Mario how could you compromise your profession?’ and so on. Mario stood up and said, ‘Sister, you know what the problem is? You’re jealous!’ She sat there for a moment, took a swig of her bourbon, and said, ‘Maybe I am. But still, I don’t see why or how you could do it.’” Entirely unfazed, Buatta continued whoring himself out — a veritable master of publicity, he even went so far as to have a suit made out of his favourite Lee Jofa chintz, wearing it on a magazine cover and at parties so as to further his carefully curated public image.
Such eccentric, media-savvy escapades should not however detract from the seriousness with which Buatta approached his decorating work — indeed even those eighteenth-century aristocrats that proved a constant source of inspiration might have baulked somewhat at the lengths to which he went in realising an interior (not to mention his prices). As The Washington Post observed in a 1989 profile, “paint doesn’t mean latex semigloss. It means a thin coat of plaster and then a layer of canvas, followed by five or so primer and finish coats, plus stippling or brushing, then glazing, to achieve the proper burnished sheen. Small wonder that painting a nonenormous [sic] dining room can cost $10,000.” Fortunately for Buatta, during a decade when America’s obsession with all things English was at its peak — in part fuelled by the Conservatism of the time, not to mention the popularity of the then Prince of Wales — a never-ending stream of blue-chip business tycoons and society figures came hurtling his way; including Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990), members of Condé Nast’s Newhouse family and Vogue fashion editor Gloria Schiff (1928-2019), all of whom were looking for cheerful Anglo-influenced interiors that had a little more somethin’ somethin’ than their historical forebears. This is perfectly encapsulated in an interview with Buatta’s long-term client, art collector (and, now, personality on reality television series Southern Charm) Patricia Altschul (b. 1941) who told Architectural Digest: “Predictable, straight, boring English country doesn’t interest me; I like it with verve, and though nobody does the genre better than Mario Buatta, this time I told him I wanted a little sparkle, not over the top, but lush, exotic — a glamorama.” It’s this candid approach that makes American design so interesting, as, uninhibited by the shackles of social nuance and staid, class-conscious rules, traditions and diktats that often unnecessarily preoccupy European designers (and especially the English, lest we forget the recent “Gates of Wrath” debacle) are of little or no relevance, and as such, decorators are able to produce interiors that are more exciting, unexpected and free, which, at the same time, are respectful of historical references and formal design principles. Tradition has its place, but it’s a shame very many European designers are more preoccupied with social mores than they are creating exciting, original works that say something about the era in which we live; in the words of Hicks, one of the few English decorators to embody this free-spirited approach, and who, perhaps more impressively, managed to sway the indigenous upper classes from their predilection for the Masterpiece Theatre school of design (though for some inexplicable reason, the tide is once again turning in favour of the staid and unimaginative): “The best rooms have something to say about the people who live in them.”