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| Henri Samuel for Jerry Perenchio , Bel Air, CA |
One of the most stunning and elegant ways to incorporate lacquer panels into a room is by having them installed within the panels of boiserie or paneling such as the library shown above. When the Perenchios bought the old Kirkeby estate, they spent many years working with the Paris decorator Henri Samuel, known as "Henry"... The house is now under new ownership and is known as
Chartwell. Henry started out as an assistant to the famous Stephane' Boudin- who became well known as the one chosen to assist Jackie Kennedy with some (but not
all) of the White House re-decoration.
Many years prior to Monsieur Samuel working in Los Angeles on Chartwell, the Greek shipping magnate, Stavros Niarchos, commissioned Samuel's mentor, Boudin (as well as Emilio Terry) to update and decorate the old Hotel de Chanaleilles in Paris- and interestingly (see below) we will see the use of the lacquer panels set into boiserie. My friend
John Tackett has written more about this house from the
ancien regime - very elegantly.
When my mentor, Tice Alexander, worked for Parish-Hadley in New York, he assisted on the Getty apartments- one of which had a powder room with lacquer panels. Later, when Ann Getty became a decorator she used the boiserie/lacquer concept in her California country house and also her Pacific Heights town house.
