Mark Hampton - Mark Hampton on Decorating

Copyright 1989 by Mark Hampton

Foreword copyright 2015 by Margaret Russell

Afterword copyright 2015 by Alexa Hampton

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Style, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

www.clarksonpotter.com

Potter Style and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC

Originally published in the United States in slightly different form by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 1989.

Most of the essays and illustrations in this work were originally published in House and Garden.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN9780553459173

eBook ISBN9780553459180

eBook design adapted from printed book design by Ann Harakawa

Illustrations by Mark Hampton

Cover design by Ann Harakawa

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I n the spring of 1984, Lou Gropp, editor in chief of House & Garden for seven golden years, called and asked me to lunch. At the table with him when I arrived for our meeting was Denise Otis, a House & Garden editor and a friend of mine for nearly twenty years. The purpose of our lunch was to discuss whether I would be willing to write a monthly column on decorating. The idea was fantastic and wonderful to me and I will forever be indebted to Lou and Denise for starting me on the path that led to this book.

After a lot of fits and starts the columns began to appear. My wife was a constant source of support and inspiration as I struggled with what seemed like a return to homework and term papers. Carter Burden, whose taste and judgment I always admire, encouraged me to keep at it when I thought my ideas were drying up; and Elaine Greene, my editor at House & Garden and after, provided the steady guidance that made the whole process possible.

Mark Hampton On Decorating is made up of versions of most of the columns that appeared in the magazine over a three-year period along with nine new chapters that I wrote specifically for the book. The marvelous members of my office staff have given me the same invaluable help with this endeavor that they give in everything I do. And finally I am grateful to all the people of the past and present who designed and decorated and lived in the rooms that have inspired me all of my life.

For Duane, Kate, and Alexa

W hen Architectural Digests New York offices moved downtown from Times Square to One World Trade Center last year, the men assigned to pack up my office were surprised to hear that transporting the contents of my floor-to-ceiling bookshelves was the only thing that seriously concerned me. Its truethough my day-to-day responsibilities as a design editor have grown to include not only publishing a monthly magazine but also editing up-to-the-minute online content, my go-to sources for information and inspiration remain my books. Hundreds of volumes on architecture, interior decoration, gardens, art, and fashion fill wall-to-wall bookcases both at my home and my office. I buy practically every design book that comes out and have always collected vintage titles. Books have been the foundation of my education, and one of my absolute favorites is a small volume, modest in size but rich in content: Mark Hampton On Decorating. Originally published in 1989, it is timeless, its advice as smart and insightful today as it was when it was first printed.

Mark Hampton, a celebrated American decorator who also was one of our countrys leading design scholars, delivers his extraordinary knowledge and expertise so deftly that reading the booka compilation of columns he wrote for House & Gardenis like relaxing with him over drinks and just listening to him talk. The book is easy and conversational, by turns erudite, irreverent, deeply funny, and seriously opinionated. Though there are no photographs, simply Marks exquisite watercolors, the book serves as a perfect primer on the basics of decorating, from color to design styles to floor plans to materials. You learn about essential design principles through his delightful stories and anecdotes, many presented within a historical context that is nothing less than enchanting. Make no mistake, though: On Decorating is not a how-to guide. Instead it is a book that informs, inspires, empowers, and, quite simply, entertains. Each time I reread a chapter, I hear Marks voice and recall the twinkle in his eye when he makes pronouncements like, Everyone loves redit is the happiest of colors, or, more pointedly, Does the Duchess of Devonshire quilt her chintz? I dont think so.

There was a great sense of elegance to Mark, yet, despite his elite client list, an utter lack of pretension. He was a Midwesterner through and through, even though he considered himself a compleat Anglophile. Always dapper, from his tortoiseshell glasses to his boldly knotted ties, Mark was the type of person who made you snap to attention and stand taller in his presence. He also encouraged people to look more closely at the world around them, even if that world might seem somewhat lacking in style. Theres always something to see wherever you go, he gently lectured a friend of mine who was bemoaning a forthcoming business trip to the hinterlands.

On Decorating encourages readers to really examine their rooms and what they furnish them with and why. For that very reason I have been snapping up secondhand copies for years and giving them as gifts to family, friends, fellow editors, and, especially, up-and-coming young interior designers. The 36 chapters are a crash course in everything thats important when creating a home, one mans decades worth of experience distilled into an infallible guidebook thats also great fun to read. Even if you are a die-hard modernistwhich Mark definitely was not, though he turned out a few disco-worthy decors in his youthits impossible to argue with a man who observes, quite rightly, that the sort of upholstered furniture that is sometimes called overstuffed is essential to comfort.

That confidence had its roots in Marks early days as an aspiring designer, when he befriended Sister Parish, the cofounder of Parish-Hadley Associates. Looking back, as I often do, Mark once wrote, I think of the great fortune of first encountering the New York decorating world with Mrs. Parish guiding me by the hand. This special book, On Decorating, is the equivalent of the marvelous Mark Hampton guiding you. What could be more eye-opening? And I cant imagine anything more magical.

Margaret Russell

Editor in Chief, Architectural Digest

I n the years since I first read Mark Hampton On Decorating, I have discovered how truly singular a design book it is. Granted, I am no longer the quasi-diffident, sullen teenager that I was when it was first published. Now, as I read and reread it as an adult, I am filled with gratitude that someone so talented, so accomplished, and so articulate put pen to paper and wrote out such logical, interesting, and illuminating pieces about the very things that interest me most. Of course, what makes that gratitude sweeter is the specific pride I feel because the person who did it was my beloved late father.