“For now.”
“If you came to work for me, it would help. I promise you.”
“I don’t know a thing about churches. Really, even through twelve years of Catholic school, I didn’t pay much attention. I just followed instructions. I wouldn’t know a cruet from a crucifix.”
“Which is why you’re perfect for the job. I need someone who will pull me back from the safe choices. I want people to walk into this church, whether they’re Catholic or not, and fall to their knees at its grandeur, have a mystical experience because the place is so beautiful it makes their eyes sting.”
“How are you gonna do that?” Christina gets up and extends her hand to pull me up. “It’s a church. It’s supposed to scare you into being good. How do you decorate that?” She looks around and I know what she’s thinking. My beloved church is a disaster. The place even smells old. “It’s not bad if you like gargoyles and stations of the cross that look like scenes from The Birdman of Alcatraz.”
“Oh, all that’s going to go. I’m going to reinvent the House of God. And who better to help me than the one person in the world who needs Him the most at this moment?”
“You sound like a kook, B.” She sighs. “Count me in. But only because you’re more fun than my addiction to the Edge of Night every afternoon at four. Let’s face it. I need a job.”
I might have been the most sought-after decorator in New York City and been in all the magazines like that chintz nut Mario Buatta, but I would have had to give up OLOF, Toot, and the boys. Duty is more important than self-advancement for a di Crespi. With that in mind, hiring family is always a bad idea, especially if you’re Italian. I believe the problem began with the mezzadri system in Italy, where a padrone ruled over workers who took care of his land and lived on his property. A resentment of authority runs deep in our veins. So what have I done? In short order, I’ve hired two family members: Christina, who will assist me with the church, and Two, who will function as a gofer so I can keep my private-client business on track while I do the church.
Christina’s first task as design associate (her new title) of the House of B is research. I send her to the divinity library at Seton Hall to find out everything she can about the miracle at Fatima. I grew up with a pretty good knowledge of saints and miracles, but I never studied them in depth. My mother’s martyrdom gave me enough firsthand experience with suffering, so I didn’t see a need to conduct further research. I leave the hard-core analysis of mystical experiences to Vatican tribunals, novitiates, and seminarians.
Four times a year I attend workshops in Manhattan sponsored by ASID, in which Members meet for high tea in the Blue Room of the Plaza Hotel (don’t get me started on how much I love this hotel, right down to the Eloise painting in the lobby) to listen to various guest speakers. Today I feel like a Vanderbilt sipping tea while overlooking the summer foliage of Central Park. It’s an afternoon of socializing, education, and tasty gossip.
“Thank you for the flowers.” Mary Kate Fitzsimmons leans over, her soft hair brushing my temple as she whispers in my ear. “Peonies are my favorite.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I came with my colleagues, so I can’t sit with you.” She smiles apologetically. “But I wish I could.”
I stand up and kiss her hand. “Next time.”
“I’ll see you . . . sometime?”
“Of course, darling.”
Mary Kate weaves through the tables to get to her seat. She sits down next to leggy Gloria Zalaznick, an up-and-coming decorator from Great Neck, and Bunny Williams, the spunky assistant at Parrish-Hadley.
I chat with the folks at my table. I always love seeing Helen McNeill, who knows more about rugs than anyone in town, and Norbert Ratliff, who first recommended Helen to me. Eventually I turn my attention to the agenda for the high tea.
On each table there’s a cup of sharpened golf pencils in a silver cup. I take one to jot down notes. There’s also a folder filled with vendors’ invitations to lunch or showroom cocktail parties where they pitch new products (cabinet-front refrigerators, nontoxic paints, Orlon wall-to-wall carpeting). I find these seminars incredibly interesting, but throw in fresh scones, clotted cream, and jam, and it’s just so civilized!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Barbara D’Arcy of Bloomingdale’s says as she takes the podium, smiling out over the crowd. Her eyes match her sapphire blue blouse perfectly. I wonder if she chose this room because she knew her coloring would look best here.
Everyone loves Barbara, and the first stop for any good decorator is her jammed-to-the-ceiling Interiors Department on the fourth floor at Bloomie’s. If you can’t find what you’re looking for there, she gets on the horn and connects you to a purveyor who can. She is a walking, talking textbook for the interior decorator. There’s a rumor going around that she’s writing a book. I can’t wait to read it.
“Thank you for joining us this afternoon,” Barbara continues. “I’ve been trying to get our guest speaker to come and talk to us for several years now, but she’s hard to pin down. Last year she was studying mosaic wall treatments in Eastern Orthodox churches in Moscow. This spring she was in China learning how to double-back embroidered silk, and last past summer she was in London learning about medieval marble inlay in cathedral settings. There is nothing in our trade this gal doesn’t know, hasn’t seen or attempted to master. You never know what sort of room she’ll create next. She did the foyer at the Frick Museum, and the English club room at the Carlyle Hotel—and, let me tell you, it is British down to the sugar cubes! Most recently, she designed the Fifth Avenue penthouse for the ambassador to Indonesia. She’s the magician behind the exotic-bird room in the glass solarium on the roof of Number Ten Park Avenue. But of course you all read about that in the Times. When it comes to interior decoration, she has no peer. Please join me in welcoming our own ASID member Eydie Von Gunne of VG Designs of Park Avenue.”
Eydie takes the stage to enthusiastic applause. She wears a Mary Quant pink tweed miniskirt, a cream-colored blouse, and knee-high boots in tan suede with pink grosgrain-ribbon laces. Leaning into the microphone, she says, “My only hope is that I don’t bore you. I’m much better at doing things than I am at talking about them.” She catches my eye and throws me a wink. She remembers me!
“Do you know her?” Helen whispers.
“We met at Gino’s,” I whisper back.
I sit in awe as she speaks. Afterward, the decorators surround her like poppies around a rose. Finally I squeeze my way through.
“Bartolomeo!”
“You remember?”
“You never called. Are there that many Gothic church experts out there?”
“No, no, it’s not that. I just don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’m still thinking. Forgive me.”
“You sound a little overwhelmed. If you need a sounding board . . .”
“Now more than ever. When you were talking about tile restoration, I couldn’t help but think about the sacristy. I’d like to preserve the original materials as much as possible.”
Eydie surveys the long line behind me. “Are you staying in town?”
“No, I was going to stop at the D&D Building and then go home.”
“Can you stay? I’m free for dinner.”
“I’d love it.”
“Top of the Sixes? Eight o’clock?”
“Sounds great.”
“I’ll see you there.” She squeezes my hand and then turns to a couple of decorators with a list of questions.
I have a ball for the rest of the afternoon. It’s one of those blustery spring days in New York when the sky is so blue the buildings turn to polished silver in the light. I savor a cup of coffee and an apple tart at Rumpelmayer’s and read the ASID newsletter. Then I walk through Central Park to the boathouse. I head back toward the Plaza Hotel, cross the carriage stop, and walk down Fifth Avenue past Gene Moore’s sparkling windows at Tiffany’s.
At Pierre Frey on First Avenue, I pick up swatches for Aur
elia’s summer furniture, then stop at Stroheim & Roman to return samples I borrowed for the Baronagan job. I jump on a downtown bus and stop in at the little smoke shop on Bleecker that is the only place that sells black beeswax taper candles for my candelabra.
As I look around at the bell-bottoms and crocheted ponchos of Greenwich Village, I remember how much I loved living here as an art student. The city was my muse. Its fractured sunlight and hard angles inspired me to create metallic-and-burlap tapestries that won me the prestigious Parsons Award for originality. I have nothing but happy memories of that time. Sometimes I want to chuck everything and move back into the city. The idea of an apartment with a view, a terrace, and a doorman is at times almost irresistible. Then I think of my Villa di Crespi, and how much I love spacious rooms, my garden, my garage, and my ocean, and I realize that I have the best of both worlds—a great life in the suburbs and fabulous times in the city. Glass half full, B, I remind myself. Glass half full!
I take the bus back uptown and buy a bright red silk tie at Bergdorf’s. My subdued navy tie will not do at the Top of the Sixes—I need some oomph. A red tie on a man is like red lipstick on a woman—it gives instant sex appeal.
The elevator to the Top of the Sixes, crowded with well-heeled New Yorkers, opens onto a dining room so beautiful it takes my breath away. The rich hues of cranberry red and midnight blue and the low, twinkling red votives on the tables are downright Russian, and the smell of leather and smoke mixes with the occasional whiff of freesia.
Eydie waves at me from a table at the far end of the room. I don’t know what sparkles more, this lovely lady in blue chiffon enveloped in a tufted red leather chair, or the city that twinkles behind her like a private kingdom. She extends her hand and I kiss it. “I hope you don’t mind. I started without you.” She lifts her martini to toast me.
“For you.” I give her a box of Godiva chocolates, tied with a gold mesh ribbon and a silk rose, and take my seat.
“I love you for this!” She smiles. “But you shouldn’t have.” She motions to the waiter, who takes my drink order. “Now, before I hear all about your church project, I need to know a little more about you. What made you become a decorator?”
“I don’t like ugly. That, and I come from a family that believes it’s criminal to remove the clear protective wrapping from a lamp shade.”
She laughs. “So you became a decorator to save the world from protective wrapping?”
“Partly. My father thought my career choice was frivolous. But I’ve learned that people who don’t use interior decorators are the same people who cut their own hair to save money. But you, young lady, you’re a true expert. Your presentation this afternoon made me proud to be a decorator. Did you notice the hush that fell on the crowd as they drank you in? We’re used to those prim blue-haired Sis Parrish types who come in and talk about welting on polished cotton as though it’s erotic. We aren’t used to being held captive by an expert who is also a great beauty.”
“Thank you.” Eydie squeezes my hand. “I just broke up with an international financier, and he had enough of my beauty and my brains, thank you very much.”
“Mr. Dimple Chin?”
“Oh, that’s right! You met him at Gino’s!”
“Not officially. Where’s he from? Idiot Town?”
“Connecticut. He went back to his wife.”
“Oh, no.”
“I didn’t know he was married. You know, you hear about this sort of thing and you always think, ‘How could she not know? Is she some sort of a dunce?’ But I travel so much that I really didn’t notice that we never went to his house. I live on Fifty-third Street, so why schlep out to the farm when we could have a bite, take a walk, and go to my apartment? I guess I wasn’t picking up the clues. I’m not good at clues.”
“Well, good-bye to him and all of that. You deserve a full-time man.”
“Maybe someday. I like the unavailable, evidently. My first boyfriend, whom I adored, ended up with a man.”
“Oh dear.” I take a sip of my drink. “You see that a lot in our business.”
Eydie eats the olive from her martini, just as the waiter brings her a second. From the sound of things, Eydie is about five years older than me, although she doesn’t look it. I think about my sister’s friends and how they are beginning to resemble Eleanor Roosevelt (the later years) no matter how pretty they were as girls. New York City women, however, manage to stay youthful. Maybe it’s all the walking that keeps them young. Or living in a place where trends are set. How can you grow old in a place that is constantly changing?
“Now, let’s talk about that church of yours,” Eydie says after the waiter takes our order.
I fill her in. Eydie knows the business side of church renovation, so she isn’t surprised that the job took time to secure. She wants to come and see the church, especially the Menecola fresco of the Blessed Mother, as she has a particular fondness for amateur artists.
“I have a whole file back at my apartment about the renovation of Gothic churches. After dinner we’ll head over, and I’ll be happy to give it to you.”
The meal is delicious—a medium-rare steak so lean I don’t need a knife, al dente asparagus, and a glass of red wine, followed by a compote of stewed strawberries and apricots on a sweet biscuit drenched in a rum sauce. Over coffee, Eydie and I find even more common ground, since it turns out she grew up Catholic, in Chicago.
We take a cab to her apartment, and in the lobby, she opens her arms wide to envelop the chic Deco space decorated in ebony and silver with etched floor-length mirrors on either side of the elevator. “Love these mirrors,” she says. “This is how I know when my seamstress sews my hem unevenly. You can check an outfit from five angles.”
She presses Penthouse. As we ride up in the elevator, I am full of anticipation. I can’t wait to see what she did with her space. “Don’t get too excited,” she says. “It’s small.” She unlocks the door and hits the light switch, revealing a long, wide main room. The far wall is all windows. She hits another switch, which raises the automatic window shades to reveal the East River, a wide ribbon of black velvet surrounded by tiny white lights that look like seed pearls.
“It’s like you live in a jewel box!” I go to the windows and look out.
“I had a garden apartment on Perry Street for years, and then one day I said, ‘I want sky and light and views,’ so I found this.”
“I love it.” Her color scheme is soft camel and white, which must look amazing in daylight. Her sectional sofa is arranged in a half-moon, covered in a soft moleskin fabric. No coffee table! Instead, a low English boot bench is placed about a foot from the couch. An antique rocker and a floor lamp are angled in the corner. A series of paintings—long, wide canvases of white with small green leaves floating across them—are staggered on the wall. Modern and abstract, they make a real statement. Her kitchen, with sleek cherrywood cabinetry and a beige tile floor, can be glimpsed from behind galley doors on the southernmost point of the room. Next to it is a powder room, the door marked LOO. I can see its gold-foil wallpaper and black enamel fixtures.
“Come and see the bedroom,” Eydie says casually.
I begin to sweat and decide to maintain my professionalism. I follow her into her bedroom. The east wall has sliding glass doors that lead to a charming terrace, which she has filled with wild plants. I follow her out the sliding doors to where two French café chairs and a small table are arranged. Thankfully, a cool breeze lowers my body temperature instantly. I take a deep breath as Eydie points out the bridges and Roosevelt Island. After the aerial tour, I follow Eydie back inside.
She has a king-sized platform bed with a thin velvet duvet in a leopard print (the perfect Diana Vreeland touch), a chaise longue covered in white damask, and in the corner, a small Shaker writing desk lacquered in white with a straight-backed chair. The opposite wall is a floor-to-ceiling closet with mirrored doors. “Very simple,” she says.
I nod. “Very Elsie de Wolfe.”
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Eydie agrees. “You can never go wrong if you follow The House in Good Taste. It’s my bible. Now I’ll show you the best room in the apartment. Are you ready?”
I follow her through a dressing area with an inlay of terra-cotta tile on the floor, a vanity and covered tuffet (in sturdy beige corduroy) in front of a large mirror with full theatrical lights. “This is where I apply my war paint,” she jokes, and continues through to another room. She flips on the lights. “My bathroom.”
“Dear God,” I say aloud. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. It’s a Cathedral of the Soak. White ceramic tiles cover the floor and walls. From the center of the vaulted-glass ceiling, a multicolored Venetian chandelier dangles like a pendant. At the far end of the large room is a white claw-foot antique tub with all the original fixtures in gold plate. There is a sofa covered in white terry cloth (sewn patchwork-style from lush Egyptian pima-cotton towels—genius move!) along the wall opposite the double sink and cabinetry. The toilet is behind a door a few feet from the tub. “Most women want closets. But I like a large bathroom, so I took the original bathroom, part of the terrace, and the second bedroom and turned it into this. I had friends who thought I was nuts. I still have outdoor space, just not as much as before.”
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Well, it’s me. I know what I need and I know what I like.”
I follow Eydie back into the living room. She offers me a seat as she goes into the kitchen. Moments later she comes out, pushing an adorable bar cart. “Would you please fix me a drink?”
“Of course.” I get up and lift the lid on the top compartment. Every liquor in captivity is in this cabinet. “How about Amaretto?”
“On the rocks, please.” Eydie goes to a bookcase near the kitchen entrance and takes a leather file box from the top shelf. She opens it and shuffles through, pulling out a file on the San Siro Cathedral in San Remo, Italy. Eydie tells me San Siro is situated on the Mediterranean, not far from where my people lived. She explains how the twelfth-century Roman Gothic cathedral went to ruin and was altered in a baroque style. Then the town came to its senses and restored it back to the original Gothic.
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