Syrie Maugham Shops

historian, author, lecturer, and restoration consultant specializing in 19th- and 20th-century interiors. Metcalf is a frequent contributing author to various shelter magazines and books including Recreating the Past: Essays on the Colonial Revival (2004), Designers on Designers (2003), David Adler, Architect: The Elements of Style (2002). In 1988 she authored Ogden Codman and the Decoration of Houses, and curated the related exhibition at the National Academy of Design, Boston Athenaeum, and National Building Museum.

20 th century decorators series Elsie de Wolfe b y Pe nny S p arke

Jansen b y Jam e s A rche r Abbo tt

New York Interior Design, 1935–85 b y Judit h G ura

syrie m a u g h a m

Pauline C. Metcalf is an independent

syrie

syrie

maugham Staging glamorous interiors

maugham

Fo r t h co mi n g

T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings

Los Angeles Interior Design, 1935–75 b y Jo Lauria f al l 2011

McMillen, Inc. b y A nn Pyne and Pa uline C. Metc a lf sp ring 2012

Back cover: Syrie at age 70, 1949.

Photograph by Cecil Beaton, Courtesy The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s, London.

PAULINE C. M ETCAL F

b y Jam e s Bure sh sp ring 2011

p a ulin e c. metca lf

b y Pau l i n e C. M e t c al f

T

rendsetter, fashion icon, and wife of an internationally renowned novelist and playwright, interior designer Syrie Maugham (1879–1955) created an ultrachic world that was as unique as it was influential.

Her ethereal all-white rooms of the 1920s and ’30s were echoed in high-style interiors around the world and translated into sets for movies and theatrical productions. Much of the look we associate with the Hollywood glamour of the time owes its simple elegance to Maugham’s pared-down aesthetic. Syrie Maugham celebrates the work of this legendary British designer in the first comprehensive study of her dramatic life and meteoric career.

Pauline C. Metcalf takes readers on a lively transatlantic voyage through Maugham’s world, from the drawing rooms she decorated in London to the houses, villas, and apartments commissioned by clients in the United States and on the Continent. With over 250 photographs and illustrations, Syrie Maugham also profiles the designer’s international clientele, a rarified group that included British royals, European aristocrats, American socialites, and Broadway stars.

In Maugham’s blend of traditional refinement and the Style Moderne, with occasional Surrealist flourishes– console tables floating on dolphin bases, fringed sleigh beds, sheepskin rugs, and miles of mirrored screens–this cosmopolitan beau monde discovered a perfect expression of café-society chic. front cover: Syrie Maugham, photograph by Cecil Beaton, Courtesy The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s, London.

Jacket Design by Jeanne Abboud

printed in china

acanthus press

www.acanthuspress.com

SYRIE AT HER DESK, DRAWN BY CECIL BEATON, 1930S

1925–50 SHOPS: FROM SYRIE LTD. TO SYRIE MAUGHAM INC. L O N D O N, C H I C A G O, A N D N E W YO R K

T

HE RAPID SUCCESS of Syrie Ltd. was such that by 1925, Maugham’s shop moved from the commercial area of Baker Street to a much grander location at the northeast corner of Grosvenor Square and Duke Street. The firm leased a splendid early Georgian house where Syrie Ltd. remained for most of the next decade.1 The sales rooms occupied a former ballroom on the ground floor as well as several on the first floor, with the rest being converted to workrooms and offices.The shop offered furniture, plaster casts, fabrics, some paintings, and objets, all displayed as if they were in a private home (a practice not unique to Syrie). As recalled by Beverley Nichols, “ her elegant establishment … was filled with exquisite but faintly dubious objects of furniture that were liable, if examined too closely, to fall to pieces.”2 Coincident with the move to fashionable Mayfair was Syrie’s decision to expand her business to the United States. Beginning with furniture shown at the Chicago Antiques Fair in 1926, Syrie Maugham Inc. opened in Chicago on North Michigan Avenue in 1928, followed in 1929 by a shop in New York on East 57th Street. The challenge of managing and stocking three locations was an enormous undertaking that required the Herculean effort both of their owner and devoted members of her staff, most especially her Scottish secretary, Olive Cruikshank.3 Accounts of several staff members provide the most information about the shops, their management, and customers. During the 1920s, Syrie Ltd. was managed by a young Dane, Frankie Leverson, a decorator in his own right, and one of several young men employed to charm customers, negotiate the intricacies of dealing with various tradesmen, help with arrangements for social functions, and sometimes even act as her escort for an

53

SYRIE MAUGHAM

EXAMPLES OF SYRIE STATIONERY AND CARDS, SHOWING SEVERAL CHANGES IN THE BUSINESS NAME

evening soirée. That Leverson was a decorator by the time he joined the firm was a leitmotif of Maugham’s professional practices: “Syrie’s employment of a potential competitor appears to have been a feature of her business technique.”4 After Leverson’s death around 1930, the shop was managed by a number of men and women, among them her sister-inlaw, Marion Lane-Norcott, the first Mrs. Cyril Barnardo; Adrienne Spanier;5 and Austin Carewe who, with architectural training, could translate Syrie’s notes and instructions into plans and drawings. In the United States, Robert Neal, a young man from Wisconsin, came to the Chicago shop in 1928, subsequently was transferred to the New York office, and ultimately to London in 1933.

54

A secret of Syrie’s success was her power of persuasion in getting quality craftsmen to work exclusively for her. She employed as many as 20 people in addition to having contracts with outside painters, carpenters, upholsterers, leatherworkers, glassmakers, and artisans. Upholstery was among the most important areas of her business: according to decorator John Fowler, its quality was the best in London.6 The beautifully detailed curtains and pelmets, frequently fabricated by the firm of Southgate, were often made of French materials, which Maugham felt were superior to those in England.7 Being a representative or special agent for designers, including Jean-Michel Frank, Diego Giacometti, Serge Roche, and Comtesse Hervé de la Morinière—who created shell ornaments—lent cachet

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

AT FRANK’S SHOP IN PARIS, 1935 (L TO R): JEAN-MICHEL FRANK, DIEGO GIACOMETTI, PAUL RODOCANACHI, EMILIO TERRY, CHRISTIAN BÉRARD, ALBERTO GIACOMETTI, AND ADOLPH CHANAUX

to her business. She was partial to French designers and patronized vendors of furniture, rugs, fabrics, and accessories in London, Paris, and beyond.8 Another aspect of her commercial genius was the ability to get along equally well with upper class customers or second-hand furniture dealers. Some reports disagree with this assessment, however, noting her temper and sometimes high-handed manner in dealing with underlings.9 She made no pretense to any special knowledge about furniture, paintings, or sculpture, but followed her instincts, which more often than not stood her in good stead.10 One admirer,Victor Afia, a carpet dealer, described her shrewd business sense in

acquiring pieces for her shop. He and his father acted on her behalf as pickers, going to the flea market in Paris every other weekend and “buying up all the old tapestries and embroideries we could find.” What amazed Afia was Maugham’s ability to scheme a whole room from one item, “perhaps a bit of Spanish lace or silk … so long as it was old she’d buy it.”11 Her keen eye for spotting the unusual decorative object is exemplified by an 18th-century tilt-top table from Brunswick, Germany, its surface set with with thousands of colorful glass beads depicting a formal baroque garden. Before offering it in her New York showroom, Syrie may have altered its finish or perhaps replaced its base. She undoubtedly knew strong

55

SYRIE MAUGHAM

TILT-TOP TABLE FROM SYRIE’S NEW YORK SHOP. THE TOP’S SCENE MADE OF GLASS BEADS IS SYNONYMOUS WITH THE 18TH-CENTURY GERMAN WORKSHOP OF JOHANN MICHAEL VON LELOW.

profits could be made with the sale of German antiques following World War I. British decorator Ronald Fleming, a contemporary of Syrie’s, commented that she could have been a brilliant stage decorator. Aspects of her style were appropriated on stage by two of London’s most celebrated theatrical talents during the 1930s, her good friends Noël Coward and Oliver Messel.The appeal of her decor was that it not only combined qualities of fashionable pastiche but was also full of novel ideas.To achieve

56

the desired effect was more important than the quality of the furniture. The all-white phase, her most well known, in fact lasted only a comparatively short time. As described by Martin Battersby, these interiors owed their success to her use of “every variation of white … except the hard and unflattering dead white, or cream with its association of suburbia.”12 Yet on another level, it was Syrie’s aplomb combined with ingenuity that contributed to her success. For one client, when she discovered that an expensive brocade she had chosen to

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

GROUP OF SYRIE–DESIGNED FURNITURE, C . 1936

cover the walls would not quite reach the ceiling, she simply had the ceiling lowered by six inches. When the clients saw the newly decorated room, they were somewhat puzzled by the change in the room’s proportions, but made no objection, because it was “so much prettier.”13 Such actions likely inspired the directive esprit of Mrs. Beaver, the socially ambitious decorator in Evelyn Waugh’s famous satire, A Handful of Dust.

In this instance, the decorator suggests that the only thing to dispel the atmosphere of Victorian gloom of one sitting room

would be to “cover the walls with chromium plating and (on the floors put) natural sheepskin carpet.”14 One of the most distinctive features of Syrie’s style was the treatment and finishing (or lack thereof) of wood.

Pickling, the term used to describe the bleaching of varnished wood to create an effect of fumed oak, became her trademark.15 Maugham’s pickling provoked both scorn and amusement. Elsie de Wolfe is said to have observed: “One day darling Syrie will arrange to be pickled in her own coffin.”16

57

SYRIE MAUGHAM

900 NORTH MICHIGAN AVENUE, SYRIE’S SHOP LOCATION ON CHICAGO’S FASHIONABLE “MAGNIFICENT MILE”

The fashion for lightening or stripping wood was not unique to Maugham. In the early decades of the 20th century, architects and decorators extended this practice frequently to antique paneling in 17th- and 18th-century houses in America as well as England. It was the natural adjunct to dispelling the darkness of the Victorian era. Fumed or lime-waxed oak was another popular finish used by Syrie, which she carried out in her own workshops.The soft grain of the oak was removed by scrubbing it with a wire brush and then it was filled in with lime wax, giving a gray tone to the piece.

Another area of decoration for which Maugham was known was custom-made furniture, primarily painted pieces

58

inspired by 18th-century French provincial originals, produced in her workshops. Simply executed with little or no decoration, their shapely forms were especially adaptable for use as night tables or plant and telephone stands. Pieces were painted different colors with highlighted mouldings, such as ivory with rose or dark green with white. She also treated furniture with a process known as craquelure, named because the effect resembled that of old Chinese porcelain with many tiny surface cracks.17 Antiquing carpets was another hallmark, especially handwoven Samarkands from the steppes of Russia. Maugham often altered their wine-colored backgrounds to the faded

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

SYRIE MAUGHAM AND FRANCES ELKINS IN MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, 1948

yellow found in worn-out carpets.To achieve the aged effect, she turned to Victor Afia to bleach them. His solution, inspired by girls who became instant blondes with peroxide, was to adopt the same technique, using a damp cloth heated with an iron to speed the process. Subsequently, he achieved similar results using ammonia.18

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK, 1926–1932 Although the actual incorporation of Syrie Maugham Inc. did not become official until March 1, 1928, the first steps toward opening an antiques and decorating business in Chicago began in December 1926. The shop was located in

900 North Michigan Avenue, a new multiuse building.

Considered one of the landmarks of the Magnificent Mile, it was one of the first complexes combining commercial and residential spaces to be built on the fashionable lakefront area of the city. The ground floor housed a string of high-end shops and a popular restaurant, Jacques, surrounding a landscaped courtyard, while the upper floors were given over to grand apartments, occupied by socially prominent Chicagoans.19 The reasons are still unclear as to who or what prompted Syrie to embark on this ambitious venture so early in her career. However, there are several possible clues beginning

59

SYRIE MAUGHAM

left: WOLCOTT BLAIR DINING ROOM, 2700 NORTH LAKE VIEW AVENUE, CHICAGO, 1930. THIS MÉLANGE OF THE STYLES OF ADLER, ELKINS, AND MAUGHAM WAS DESCRIBED BY A PERIOD JOURNAL AS DEMONSTRATING “AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SPIRIT OF THINGS.” right: I. NEWTON PERRY RESIDENCE, 1325 NORTH ASTOR STREET, CHICAGO, C . 1930. BEDROOM ALCOVE DECORATED IN THE FRENCH MANNER

with her memory of this city, exploding with new wealth and industrial opportunities, which she had visited during her marriage to Henry Wellcome. Flush with the success of Syrie Ltd. and aware of the potential cachet of her Anglo social and literary connections, she sensed Chicago’s need for “the grace and refinement of the Old World which her talents could provide.”20 Another source of encouragement may have come from her old friend, Gordon Selfridge, formerly a partner of Marshall Field before opening his own grand emporium in London. Selfridge was possibly instrumental in introducing Maugham to Elizabeth Arden, the cosmetics entrepreneur, who offered Syrie a “base in her own offices from which to make the leap into the New World.”21 Although the arrange-

60

ment was short-lived, it was Arden’s connections to the most glamorous and wealthy women in America that were a considerable boon in launching Syrie’s new venture. She provided Maugham with a place to bring in antiques and fabrics from Europe and arrange for their storage. During her first seasons in Chicago, Syrie most likely used space in Arden’s building at 70 East Walton Place.

Maugham’s greatest ally in the Chicago venture was David Adler, the architect who designed many elegant country houses in the area during this time. (Adler and his wife, Katherine, were close friends of Syrie’s, and it was after visiting Syrie at Le Touquet in 1930 that Katherine was killed in an automobile accident.) During the period of the

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

ENGLISH DRAWING ROOM OF THE MODERN PERIOD, 1930S, MINIATURE ROOM DESIGNED BY MRS. JAMES WARD THORNE, C.

1937, USING SYRIE’S WHITE AND SILVER PALETTE.

Chicago shop’s existence, Syrie contributed to a number of important commissions with Adler and his sister, Frances Elkins. It is difficult to determine her input to the designs, as there are no archives that provide documentation, but David Adler certainly relied on a variety of items found at Syrie’s shop, ranging from French and English antiques and bibelots, imported fabrics, even wallpapers from Nancy McClelland.22 Announcements were sent out seasonally to inform clients of the latest collection of furniture, including “moderately priced objets de Paris suitable as Christmas

gifts.”23 Syrie Maugham Inc. was managed by Cornelia Conger, a young decorator with fine social connections, who was “prepared to furnish completely, homes where a number of our Antique pieces are used.”24 She was assisted by Robert Neal, who worked for Syrie in London, Chicago, and New York from 1928 to1934, and whose account of his time there is the only existing archive providing details about the business.25Years later the Chicago Tribune described the effect of Syrie’s shop on the “pillars of (our) society” who had thereby, “injected into their Midwestern homes some of the

61

SYRIE MAUGHAM

most exquisite examples of the continent’s antique furniture glories.”26 Maugham’s legacy in Chicago is, perhaps, best preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago, in one of the famous Thorne miniature rooms. The white and silver interior is described as an “English drawing room of the modern period, 1930s.”27 By the summer of 1929, Syrie had opened a New York showroom at 20 East 57th Street, just off Fifth Avenue, with a move to 39 East 57th Street by the following December. In International Studio she publicized her stock of “old English and French Furniture” and mentioned her three locations.

Beverley Nichols humorously described this branch as: “An astonishing collection of old bits and pieces of French provincial armoires, Biedermeyer [sic] sofas, nineteenth century Italian chests … passed across the Atlantic, at fabulous prices, and slowly decomposed in the mansions of Long Island.”28 In 1931, a “sitting room” designed by Syrie included in the Third International Exposition held at Grand Central Palace, New York, was hailed by Vogue as “pre-eminent among the exhibits” with its mix of pieces ranging from a Hepplewhite sofa to a pair of Georgian consoles to Louis XVI–style pieces arranged against a backdrop of antique sea-green brocade.29 One of Maugham’s favorite dealers in New York was Frederick Victoria, with whom her transactions included making, buying, and selling “antique” pieces. Victoria recalled that the secret of the craftsman who made unique reproductions for the British decorator was to use old wood from furniture he brought over from France. Victoria also visited Syrie’s London shop on Bruton Street, and it was there that he discovered how she antiqued her trimmings, or passementerie, which were an especially distinctive detail of her upholstery style. She dipped them in a mixture of tea and coffee, and hung them out behind the shop, where they dried and mellowed in the sun.

Neither the expense nor the potential damage deterred Syrie from shipping great amounts of furniture to different

62

parts of America, especially if a large job was in the works.

It was not unusual for decorators to send more furniture for a job than they could use; hence, it made sense to establish a temporary shop with the excess. In 1931 she opened one in Palm Beach. The following year, from early February until April 1932, she tried a similar arrangement in Los Angeles.

Members of the Hollywood community reportedly sought her advice, including possibly Marion Davies, Mary Pickford, and Constance Bennett. The interiors of many celebrated stars’ homes reflected aspects of Syrie’s style, but little documentation survives.

Despite the successful launching of two American subsidiary shops, Syrie Maugham Inc. was complicated by the financial woes that beset any retail business, especially one dependent on satisfying the luxury trade. Among the complexities of creating elegant interiors on two sides of the Atlantic were matters such as the shipping of great quantities of furniture from England to Chicago, NewYork, Palm Beach, and Los Angeles, or wherever there was a demand for highend pieces, to whet the appetites of nouveau riche customers.

Although marvelous at selling and bargaining, conceiving imaginative decorating schemes, and charming the most difficult clients, she did not have equivalent skills to balance a checkbook or control the whims of indulgent spending for a promotional lark. The Wall Street crash of 1929 not only resulted in the loss of her personal income but affected the lifestyle of her clients, limiting the disposable income to spend on a glamorous interior. During her career, Maugham had to contend with numerous setbacks in her business, which included the auctioning off of inventory and the letting go of staff. The struggle to pay bills as well as workmen was often attributed to the difficulty in collecting from clients.

The trigger that brought the end to her official retail operations in America was a visit from the United States Customs. Although pieces over one hundred years old could be brought into the country free of customs duty, much of

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

Syrie’s acquisitions could be classified as borderline. Although items were labeled as antique, the experts sometimes disagreed. Crookie agreed that Maugham sometimes “sailed close to the wind … She had what you might call an adventurous spirit.”30 It was ultimately a run-in with the Internal Revenue Service regarding “irregularities” in the reporting of ages and values of furniture that forced the closing of the shops. Although it was not uncommon to keep two sets of books, one with true valuations and the other with lower numbers, in Syrie’s case the day the authorities visited they were accidentally shown the accurate set. The State of Illinois accused the business of failure to pay franchise tax; hence, on November 15, 1932, state authorities revoked Syrie Maugham Inc.’s certificate to do business, thus provoking the sale of the existing inventory of both the Chicago and New York shops, as well as selections of stock from Syrie Ltd. The Anderson Galleries in New York conducted the auction of “Fine Decorative Furniture in Exquisite Taste,” in addition to Aubusson carpets and silk and painted paper wall panels, on January 21, 1933.31 The grand total of the sale of her stock came to $22,920.

LONDON AND NEW YORK, 1933–1953 During the later 1930s, the name of the London shop was changed from Syrie Ltd. to White and Syrie Ltd., with the subheading “House Decorators and Dealers in Antiques.” The name was changed possibly as a clever device to head off Customs agents, because as suggested by James Amster, who recalled “they’d caught her smuggling fabrics. Oh yes, she was a tough girl.”32 Neal, who came to London to run the shop in 1933, reported to an American friend: “She has some really lovely things, some of them having returned from Chicago.”33 He also learned that as a bachelor in London, especially with letters of introduction, he needed a visit to Savile Row. When attending the opera and ballet, it was de rigueur to dress in black or white tie. In July, he wrote that he went to

ADVERTISEMENT FOR SYRIE’S LATEST ACQUISITIONS IN HER CHICAGO SHOP, C . 1930

63

SYRIE MAUGHAM

A SELECTION OF FORMS AND STYLES, FROM THE HISTORIC TO THE MODERNE, THAT SYRIE MAUGHAM PROVIDED TO HER CLIENTS this page, clockwise from top: MIRRORED SCREEN DESIGNED BY SYRIE MAUGHAM, 1935, GIVEN BY MARGARET, DUCHESS OF ARGYLE, TO THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM; GIACOMETTIDESIGNED SCULPTURAL TABLE LAMPS FOR SYRIE MAUGHAM; ONE OF TWO “ESCARGOTS” SHELL LIGHTS IN PLASTER (DIEGO GIACOMETTI DESIGN FOR SYRIE MAUGHAM); WHITE PORCELAIN-HANDLED KNIVES, AFTER AN 18TH-CENTURY MEISSEN MODEL, DESIGNED BY MAUGHAM opposite page top row: PAINTED LOUIS XVI–STYLE CANE SIDE CHAIRS (EX COLLECTION SYRIE MAUGHAM); MODEL OF SYRIE MAUGHAM’S PAINTED QUEEN ANNE SIDE CHAIRS; WHITEWASHED, RUSTIC CORNER ARMCHAIR WITH NATURALISTICALLY CARVED SPLATS, GERMAN, C. 1860 (EX COLLECTION MR. AND MRS. PAUL MELLON) middle row: BOLINETTE CHAIR, A REPRODUCTION OF A FRENCH FORM NAMED AFTER ANTIQUE DEALER ERIC BOLIN; PAINTED REGENCY–STYLE TABLE WITH RAM’S HEAD MOTIF; REGENCY– STYLE DOLPHIN CHAIRS (EX COLLECTION SYRIE MAUGHAM) bottom row: PAINTED REGENCY–STYLE LYRE TABLE (EX COLLECTION SYRIE MAUGHAM); UNUSUAL REGENCY “DRAGON COUCH,” C. 1815, LENT TO THE COOPER UNION BY SYRIE MAUGHAM IN 1954; UPHOLSTERED STOOL WITH WOOD FRAME AND LEGS TO SIMULATE KNOTTED ROPE; MODELED AFTER C.1860 DESIGN FOR CHATEAU DE COMPIEGNE.

64

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

65

SYRIE MAUGHAM

LILY AND GEORGE CLARK LIVING ROOM, 333 EAST 68TH STREET, NEW YORK, 1930. LILY WAS THE ARTIST DAUGHTER OF PAINTER HOWARD CUSHING. A WHITE BEARSKIN RUG LAY ON THE WHITE SHEEPSKIN CARPET, COMBINED WITH CREAM SERGE SLIPCOVERS AND OYSTER WHITE DAMASK CURTAINS.

Paris with Mrs. Maugham to an exhibition of plaster houses (possible reference to the work of Emilio Terry, whose work was sold through Jean-Michel Frank’s shop, or to Serge Roche) that Elsie de Wolfe had suggested, as well as two other exhibits on French art and Chinese painting.34 Syrie included Neal on her shopping trips to France, because she both enjoyed his company and knew how important it was to train his eye. He accompanied her on a trip to Lyon, then the center of the velvet industry, to work with a dyemaster to get a certain color for a 50-yard bolt of silk velvet. He

66

assessed her color sense as superb, a quality that, in his opinion, few other decorators had.

Recollections of his year in London reveal the social stratosphere of Syrie’s clientele. One evening shortly before Christmas, a young man with an astrakhan collar on his overcoat came in looking for a present for his mother. Neal, who did not recognize him as Prince George, Duke of Kent, was immensely pleased to sell him a few items, including a porcelain figurine of Saint George slaying the dragon. Quite overcome when the royal client directed them sent to St. James’s Palace, his enthu-

S HOPS : F ROM S YRIE

LTD. TO

S YRIE M AUGHAM

INC .

ILLUSTRATION FROM 1941 PROMOTING PLASTER ORNAMENTS BY FRENCH AND AMERICAN DESIGNERS. SYRIE SOLD SEVERAL EXAMPLES, INCLUDING GIACOMETTI’S SHELL WITH CONCEALED LIGHT AT FAR LEFT.

siasm was quickly deflated by Mrs. Maugham who retorted: “Terrible! Royalty are such poor payers.”35 On several occasions, Neal recalled that the shop was used for fashion shoots as well as a setting for prominent members of the theater. Once when Syrie and her daughter, Liza, were in St. Moritz for a winter holiday, the Paris editor of Vogue called to arrange for Cecil Beaton to photograph theatrical luminaries Gertrude Lawrence, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne at the shop. Neal was sent to Selfridge’s for a bolt of white muslin to create a cascading white canopy fram-

ing Lawrence in Syrie’s white damask sleigh bed, all seamed with the decorator’s hallmark silk fringe, and accompanied by a sculpted white Marion Dorn rug. Next to the bed were white lilacs, whose green leaves were replaced with cellophane ones for photographic effect. From his perch on a stepladder, Beaton captured Lawrence in a white nightgown with her little dog alongside.36 The biggest challenge of Neal’s London experience came when Syrie asked him to substitute for her and put a room together for an important client in Tunbridge Wells, Lady

67

SYRIE MAUGHAM

Victoria Paget.37 Selecting several commodes, paintings, and a few objets d’art from the warehouse, along with the usual sheepskin rug, he placed furniture and some pictures around the room. He recalled feeling complimented that Mrs. Maugham had delegated the job to him and that Victoria Paget had taken all his suggestions.38

LATER COMMISSIONS, 1945–55 With so many financial records left about her business missing, tracing the full extent of Maugham’s clientele has proven elusive. She continued to play a role among the most sophisticated arbiters of taste until the 1940s and ’50s, and, although her business was diminished, her name still carried considerable cachet. One such example is a reference to her involvement with the decoration of Le Clos Fiorentina, a dower house that adjoined the famous villa at St. Jean-Cap Ferrat.The property belonged to the American writer-designer Roderick Cameron, “the last of the nineteenth-century gentlemen,”39 and his mother, the much-married Lady Kenmare. Though decorated by Cameron, it was “furnished with the help of Syrie Maugham … a surprising jumble of 1940s mirrored furniture, Elizabethan tables, Baroque panels, and great jade dishes in which water lilies floated.”40 A former client who still extols her talents and charm is Babs Simpson. As a young divorcée, she arrived in NewYork in the early 1940s about to embark on her legendary career with Condé Nast, first as fashion editor at Vogue and later at House & Garden. She recalled that the world as she knew it was much smaller, especially within the realm of fashion and design; “everyone knew each other,” and if one had introductions to the right sources, things just fell into place.41 Simpson and Maugham met in Bermuda in the early 1940s, both staying at

the same guesthouse in which Syrie had decorated a suite, and Simpson was pleased when Maugham offered to help spruce up her little apartment on 76th Street in New York. Although no photographs of the apartment exist, Babs remembered a sofa recovered in olive green with fuschia cushions: “She did not have a myth about white, she adored color.” But Simpson perceived that, in contrast to her ability to create “voluptuous, romantic rooms,” the decorator had “no business sense.”42 Another surviving client is Horace Kelland, a longtime friend of Syrie and her family.43 Mrs. Paul Mellon (known as Bunny) also remains a devotee. Long considered one of the most knowledgeable ladies of taste in America, she is at home with all the arts, though gardens lay greatest claim to her talents. Her enthusiasm for Syrie Maugham’s taste grew out of her friendship with the decorator’s daughter, Liza, but it was not until she became mistress of Oak Spring, Paul Mellon’s estate in Upperville, Virginia, in 1948 that she sought Syrie’s professional advice.

The decorator did extensive work there as well as at the Mellons’ beach house on Cape Cod, and their town house on East 70th Street. A wonderful example of Maugham’s idiosyncratic taste is a rustic corner armchair painted white, with naturalistically carved branches that for years graced the Manhattan front hall. An American decorator, Mark Hampton, observed, “the Mellons’ rooms with their unsurpassed pictures, still reflect the Syrie Maugham dislike of stuffy richness.”44

opposite: GERTRUDE LAWRENCE AND HER TERRIER POSED FOR CECIL BEATON IN SYRIE’S SHOP, FRAMED IN THE CASCADING CANOPY AND SILK FRINGE OF A SLEIGH BED, C . 1934.

68