Authors Note
Interior designers are extraordinarily good at so many things, but answering emails, letters and telephone calls isnt one of them. Neither is keeping records.
Sifting through four decades of photography in order to properly tell the Kips Bay story wasnt the easiest of pursuits. But with a great deal of help and persistence, along with some very lovely conversations and equally lovely cocktails, I think we did a pretty good job. Indeed, there are so many stars in the Kips Bay constellationand many sadly, have left us. But the rooms still shine.
There were many images that simply werent reproducible. Time isnt kind to photography, just as it isnt to memories. I am sure that there are showstopping rooms by fabulous designers that havent been included in this book. From the bottom of my heart, I apologize for any slight. Theres always the sequel.
Foreword
by Bunny Williams
Each spring, over 20,000 people flock to New York City to see the fabulous rooms created by the citys top designers in the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, which was begun forty years ago to benefit the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club. This was one of the first major decorator show houses in the States, and the model is followed in cities across the country. In the finest houses and apartments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, designers over the many years have created some of the most memorable roomsrooms that have started trends and have allowed the public to view firsthand the best in interior design.
The definitive salon by Bunny Williams.
Photography by Oberto Gili.
What is also amazing about these rooms is that they are created in less than six weeks, as the homes are only available for the show house less than three months and the show house is open to the public for a month of that time. As soon as the designers receive confirmation of the rooms they will be decorating, they draw up plans and work begins. New architectural details are added to some rooms; walls and ceilings are prepared and painted; floors are refinished; new kitchens are installed with the latest appliances; bathrooms are completely redone, often introducing products. New fabrics and custom wall coverings are designed, printed and launched first at the show house opening. Decorative painters work tirelessly on creating special wall finishes and murals.
Needless to say, with as many as twenty or more designers working in one house, it can be chaotic but very exciting at the same time. There is wonderful camaraderie but also a sense of competition, because each designer wants to make sure that their room is the star.
For many of us, our commitment to the Kips Bay Decorator Show House is to the club house itself and the 2,500 kids a day that benefit from the after-school programs the club provides. On any afternoon the energy at the club house makes you realize how important it is to these kids lives to have committed staff that provide music lessons, dance classes, sports activities, computer education, help with school work and any counseling that might be needed. It is truly an amazing place.
Over the years I have been truly inspired by the wonderful rooms of Kips Bay, and it is thrilling to see many of them again in the pages of this fabulous book.
Introduction
Like flower shows, dog shows, garden tours and antique shows in high school gyms or tents, the decorator show house is a convention of polite society that harkens back to a gentler time, when ladies wore white gloves and men donned hats to the office. Or when people got dressed up for air travel and the theater. These happenings, designed to give interior decorators a platform to showcase their talents and their wares, continues to fascinate and inspire, drawing the oh, so social to their gala openings and general admirers of all things beautiful to their open-to-the-public hours.
For more than four decades, the pinnacle of this convention has been the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York City. Started in 1973 by several dedicated supporters of the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, its ironic that something so patrician and refined was born at the very time when interior design was leaving the world of traditional dcor in favor of more modern expressions. Gone were velvet-covered sofas and silk damask curtains with tassels and fringe. In their place: mirrored walls, vast expanses of lacquer and acres of shag carpet accented with huge chrome gazelles and paintings of the number 2. There were conversation pits, bethrooms (ridiculous combinations of bed and bath) and undulating platforms sporting chairs shaped like handsor lips. Lets just say it was a time.
Early on, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House was very much a grassroots affair. It didnt matter that the core supporters came from the privileged world of New York high society; everyone just dove in with a kind of lets put on a show in the barn enthusiasm. You would see one of the DuPonts in rubber gloves cleaning the loos! remembers designer Sandra Nunnerley.
From the pages of Town & Country magazine, one years stellar designers.
Photo courtesy Town & Country Magazine/Hearst Publications.
Photography by Dana Fineman, (courtesy Town & Country Magazine/Hearst Publications)
So much of the credit for maintaining the high standards of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House belongs to the late design visionary Harry Hinson, a trustee of Kips Bay who also chaired the designers committee for 33 years. A soft-spoken Southern gentleman whose decidedly chic wallpapers, textiles, furniture and lighting survive him in countless interiors, Hinson served as a lightning rod not only for talent but also financial support. Harry was beloved for his dedication and commitment in taking a nascent endeavor and turning it into a major fund-raiser, said designer and fellow trustee Gary Crain.
Today, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House sets the standard by which all others are judged. Trends have begun there, traditions have been celebrated or revived, and careers have been made. The roster of Kips Bay alumni reads like a Whos Who of American interior design, with names as revered as Sister Parish, Albert Hadley and Mark Hampton to the superstars of today and, more importantly, tomorrow. Many designers credit their first appearance at Kips Bay as their seminal moment, and those that have designed rooms for subsequent years acknowledge the powerful stamp of validation and relevance that this one show house wields.