Stage Set

Introduction

“To me, designing is really about conjuring magic. When someone views one of my interiors, I want the overall effect to be akin to the moment when archaeologist Howard Carter peered into King Tut’s tomb and Lord Carnarvon asked, ‘What do you see?’ His reply was two words: ‘Wondrous things.’”

There is no doubt that Bradfield interiors are filled with wondrous things—art, objects, and furnishings that flawlessly blend cultures, continents, and centuries. But his interiors are invariably greater than the sum of their curated parts. They are not unlike stage sets, brimming with intention, where lighting is precisely calculated to set a particular mood and every prop plays a deliberate role in forwarding the narrative. Theatre is at once about, and larger than, life.

Requiring immense creativity and insight, the best theatre suspends disbelief and immerses us completely in its place and time—and in the lives of the characters on stage. As the English actor Simon Callow has said, “To enter a theatre for a performance is to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.”

Since his childhood in rural South Africa, Bradfield has dwelt in this sacred arena, where grace, mystery, and transcendence have been the metaphorical tools of his trade. He uses them to mine the psyches of his clients, an illustrious international coterie with the means to shepherd his ideas beyond the limits of conventional desire. And desire is a powerful thing—relentless and insatiable. As grounded in the history of fine and decorative arts as his interiors are, as erudite, urbane, and worldly, they are essentially fantasies of aspiration and style—stage sets for the boundless and restless realms of our imagination. Despite the individually tailored focus required for each client, all these environments possess a common thread: Geoffrey Bradfield manages to strike a balance between humility and grandeur, continually bridging the distance between the past and present, but always designing—and living—for the moment.

Bradfield’s single-minded pursuit of that illusory essence of style is chronicled in his homes, where, like an ancient alchemist, he distils the specific ingredients of elegance and luxury pervading the zeitgeist of the time. They are, in essence, building blocks of memory, while also pressing against the outer edges of the current cultural awareness, always asking, “What’s next?” To use another metaphor, his houses are nothing less than a road map of a life spent questioning, seeking, opening to new perspectives.

It is this persistent quest—which has been, in reality, a spiritual journey for Bradfield—that has kept his work vital, exciting, and relevant in an industry saturated with (some might say diluted by) design that depends on the latest trend for its value. Bradfield has never followed trends; he has set them. It is the reason the work of his firm spans the globe, the reason he has been acknowledged by AD with the title of a “Dean of American Design,” the reason he occupies a respected place in the pantheon of contemporary design.

This book is an invitation to chart Bradfield’s unlikely ascendance from a farm in the South African provinces to a career that has earned him worldwide recognition as “The Billionaire’s Designer.” Enjoy the play.

—David Sprouls President, New York School of Interior Design

T

The Ritz Tower

14

I

I find myself hard-pressed to conjure a number for the countless interiors I have staged and designed. Over my 50 years in this incandescent profession, each project has represented another step in the development of a personal style. Each has offered me a window onto some previously unknown subtlety or nuance, a chance to experiment with fresh ideas and expand my entire creative vocabulary. It has proved a richly rewarding process of evolution and a continuous refinement of my point of view. If we are fortunate, this journey lasts a lifetime, as long as one can remain open and receptive to an ever-changing world.

Throughout the unfolding of this tapestry, my homes have always been my creative litmus tests.

With no client through whom to filter my concepts but myself, these residences have given me complete liberty to attempt one vision or another according to what has been most dominant in my consciousness at the time. As such, they are a visual narrative of my development not only as a designer, but as a human being. At this significant juncture, my Ritz Tower apartment is as accurate a picture of who I am as anyone is likely to encounter.

A mystical significance seems to attend the number seventy, which has taken on many meanings throughout millennia. The Psalms refer to the normal span of a life as “threescore years and ten.� St. Augustine believed it measured the totality of an evolutionary cycle. And in numerology, seventy represents mastery, contemplation, spirituality, and rest.

The symbolic dimensions of 70 hardly escaped me when I attained this august stage of life. In fact, preparations for this important phase had begun the year before, through a process of divestiture and editing that saw the sale of White Hall, my townhouse on East 61st Street, in addition to a Park Avenue flat and a Palm Beach residence. The major part of my art collections, acquired over decades, also became acquainted with the auction gavel. This simplification of my life has been tremendously therapeutic. In a sense, it is like turning back a clock, allowing a return to a less encumbered autonomy.

Inside the threshold one finds oneself in a corridor lined along one side with mirrors culminating at a built-in bar. On the opposite panelled wall hangs a Marie Laurencin portrait of an effete young cellist. The veneer conceals a small kitchen and powder room. I am fortunate to have enjoyed a life of travel and of encounters with many of the most gifted and influential people in the world. The corridor offers a spare, elegant passage to a living room that functions as a visual catalogue of many of these touchstones and artefacts of my life.

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N

Now Voyager

Philosopher’s Walk in Toronto with Helen and Don. Surviving a seemingly endless Canadian winter.

A

Adventure became the new norm. The following year, riding the wave of youth culture across the Atlantic, a dauntless posse set off for Canada.

Expo 67 in Montreal, acknowledged as the most successful World’s Fair of the twentieth-century, was the catnip. Toronto became our base for several months. The burgeoning literary, fashion, art, and music scenes had made Yorkville the unquestionable hub of the counterculture. A heedless flock smoked marijuana openly in the streets, held love-ins at Queen’s Park, and shopped for hippie garb and hookahs in neighbourhood boutiques tucked into the ground floors of quaint Victorian row houses.

Over 40 clubs and coffee houses launched the early careers of many Canadian talents. One could listen to Dennis Lee recite his sonnets and Margaret Atwood try out her proto-feminist prose at readings around town. Nestled into the red booths at the Riverboat, patrons first listened to performances by Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, and Neil Young. The coffee house’s reputation for emerging artists soon drew international musicians too—Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, and Janis Ian, among others. More fleshy were the Penny Farthing and the Mynah Bird, where go-go girls (frequently topless) gyrated in glass cages suspended from the second floor. Over at the Purple Onion, Carly Simon sang her torch songs, the hypnotically blue-eyed Judy Collins intoned melancholic folk ballads, and the music of Saskatchewan Cree singer Buffy Sainte-Marie implored us to protest the Vietnam War.

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161

The Sherry Netherland

While completing a project in Manhattan for movie producer Cy Howard and his wife, Barbara, the daughter of Jack Warner, I was introduced to Cecil Beaton, who designed the Oscar-winning sets for My Fair Lady, among other Warner Brothers films. Mr. Beaton had been leasing a tiny section of the Warner duplex in the Sherry Netherland Hotel. I was completely seduced by the building’s charm and pledged, “One day I will live in the Sherry Netherland.” And so I did.

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164

My apartment on the 22nd floor had not been touched since 1948, so my initial step was to introduce symmetry to the existing space, installing a mirror to lend ballast to the entry opening, and adding six classical pilasters. The architectural envelope secured, I assembled a veritable showcase of twentieth-century design, orchestrating a blend of past and present periods and styles, beginning with the Art Nouveau movement and progressing into the Millennium. The fashion world’s revival of gray flannels influenced my palette. The walls, of textured raw silk, became the perfect backdrop to works by Louise Bourgeois, Lynn Chadwick, Louise Nevelson, Tamara de Lempicka, Jim Dine, Ernest Trova, Eva Hess, and Robert Graham.

Photography Credits Simon Alexander: 222; Harry Benson: 193; Robert Brantley: 198, 200-201, 212-213; Michael Calderwood, Courtesy Architectural Digest, © 2004. The Condé Nast Publication. Used with permission: 120; Mike Carey, Courtesy Tuxedo Historical Society. Used with permission: 126-127; Gianni Franchellucci: 236; Gavin Furlonger: 71, 74-76, 88-89; Mary Hilliard: 265; John Lei: 182-187, 278-279; Cutty McGill: 240-241, 244-257; Edward North: 129; Rogerio Pereira: 77, 81; Marco Ricca: 280-282, 283; Peter Rymwid: 138-139, 283; Sargent Photography: Cover, 6, 14, 16-19, 21-32, 202-210, 212213, 214-221, 282, 287, Back Cover; H. Durston Saylor: 102-105, 128, 131, 163-172, 174-177, 192, 194-197, 227-234, 237, 239, 268, 272-273; H. Durston Saylor, Courtesy Architectural Digest, © 1995. The Condé Nast Publication. Used with permission: 128, 130, 132-134; Colin Sharp: 78, 80; Theo Westenberger, Courtesy Architectural Digest, © 2003. The Condé Nast Publication. Used with permission: 180 Geoffrey Bradfield’s personal albums 33-35, 38-47, 51, 52, 53, 58, 62, 80-81, 84-85, 87, 92, 94-97, 106-107, 108-118, 129, 135, 136, 138, 144-145, 159, 178, 185-189, 190, 211, 259-265, 274, 276-277 Geoffrey Bradfield’s personal scrapbook 152, 156-157, 160-161 Other Photographs Courtesy of Phelophepa Train. Used with permission: 9; Photo by FPG/Getty Images, Ritz Tower: 12; Odin Rosenvinge: 48; Shutterstock.com, Aerial view of New York City skyline and Empire State Building, Chrysler Building: 98; Pedro E. Guerrero, Louise Nevelson: 141; Shutterstock.com The Sherry-Netherland Hotel: 162; Photo by KDW Photo Astor & Black: 190 Artists Mel Odom: 10; Debbie Bancroft: 33; Lamont O’Neal & Peter Brown: 54-55, 62-65, 124-125, 140, 149-150, 225; Gillian Chase: 79; Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef: 82-83, 86-87, 92-93; Alberto Cordoneda: 137 Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omissions.