123 East 55th Street things.”20 It was an obser vation with w hich Marb ury would not have argued. As she once said, “I don’t care for dresses and I don’t care for jewels, but I’m mad on the subject of anything artistic.”21 Although she offered affectionate recollections of both the East 17th Str eet house and Villa Trianon in her 1923 autobiog raphy, Marbury did not mention the house on East 55th Street. One senses, in fact, that she actually spent v ery little time in it or perhaps r ecognized that the Little House of Many Mir rors was really de Wolfe’s home, philosophicall y and emotionally. Marb ury onl y spent six months a y ear in New York in an y case, and tw o each in London, P aris, and Berlin, where her literary agency had branch offices that annually sifted through some 5,000 manuscripts—she herself read a half dozen new plays per day.22 For de Wolfe, ho wever, the East 55th Str eet house provided her, as decorator and as c lient, with everything she needed. In her own words, “in its proportions, balance, ar rangements, fur nishings, objets d’art, atmosphere, and suitability of purpose, it was as perfect a city house as the two of us could have had.”23 Ironically, because of her war work and increased focus on Villa Trianon and lif e in F rance, de Wolfe spent only a few winters there, and the documentary e vidence sug gests that Marb ury did not completely commit herself to li ving in the house either. Nonetheless, the Little House of Man y Mirrors w as widel y documented in popular consumer mag azines, inc luding Good H ousekeeping, American Homes and Gardens, and Harper’s Bazaar. It also inspired muc h of the content of The House in Good Taste, and it clearly offered an ideal that many women wanted to follow. “This house is an especially interesting stud y to those w ho ar e inter ested in house planning and in problems of interior decoration as it embodies many features of importance.”24
Elisabeth Marbury’s bedroom. ( The House in Good Taste, 1913)
When Marbury moved to Sutton Place in 1920, some of the contents of the East 55th house followed her across town; others likely were sold at auction or to clients. The dining room grisailles ended up in Condé Nast’s penthouse. The idyllic domestic setting that de Wolfe had be gun to cr eate in 1911 w as fully realized but ne ver full y occupied. Yet 123 East 55th Str eet served as a signif icant oppor tunity f or de Wolfe to thoroughly develop her decorating ideas in the context of her o wn home, without the spatial and stylistic restrictions of the poky house on East 17th Str eet.
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