Tuesday, April 21, 2020

ROOM: Garconniere

DFID designers own residence

This image of my living room reminds me of when I was very young I would go to professors homes in Atlanta (I was a student at the art institute of Atlanta) as a guest and I got to soak up the atmosphere -it was wonderful.

Through my roommate Robert Shatzer, I was invited to the apartment of Professor Carey Sutlive -a very talented photographer who did all the pictures for one of the Neel Reed architecture books.  Imagine being 17 years old and invited to an apartment that looked like something a New York decorator had done (quite dark) and being offered a scotch in a waterford Highball- of course I loved it.

Bob and I also spent a lot of time at the apartment of Stan Topol and his partner Michael, which was great fun -it was done in a very low-key Billy Baldwin style and we had many dinners there -it was just so much fun to be hanging out with our professors if you can imagine.

Later, through my friend and classmate Nicolas Cardone, I was taken to the chic midtown apartment of professor Roger Remaley, who at the time was working with T. Gordon Little - one of the top society decorators of Atlanta.

Not only was Roger one of the best looking men you could possibly imagine -he was always in a suit (usually double breasted) - very well cut -and he drove a beautiful jaguar sedan -his apartment had nothing in it except for a tester bed sitting in the middle of the living room -which struck me as being extremely smart à la Pauline de Rothschild -!  And now that I think about it, this bed also reminded me back then of George Peppard as the kept man in "breakfast at Tiffany's" -not only did Roger look like George but he spent a lot of time in that bed if you've ever seen the film version of the Truman Capote novel.  Many years later I worked with a society decorating firm in New York and the office manager was dating the son of George Peppard -!!  DF