general fluency with their use. Sillsís apartment was the apotheosis of this sophisticated style, combining European antiques (18thcentury mahogany furniture), Indian motifs (stenciled walls and handwoven striped fabrics) and Modern art (works by MirÛ, Twombly, Arp). The magazines ate it up. Two of Sillsís early heroes were Albert Hadley and Henri Samuel, the respective deans of American and French classical decorating ó but also relentless inventors. Samuel, a decorator in the grandest French tradition, mixed contemporary art and furniture (paintings by Balthus, Lucite cloud-shaped tables, Giacometti) with Louis XVI paneling and velvet-covered walls. This sort of cocktail inspired Sills both to emulate and to innovate. He is self-taught ó born in Durant, Okla., he went to the University of North Texas, where he received a bachelorís degree in interior design, and after that to Paris for three years, where he majored in having a good time. Although he did some work with Hank Gremillion, one of Renzo Mongiardinoís illusionistic painters, there was no design mentor. At the urging of his father, he returned to the States and got a real job as a decorator in Dallas. In 1982, he moved to New York to strike out on his own, eventually teaming up with Huniford. And while they soon earned trophy commissions like
Wangís Park Avenue pad and the collectors Stephen and Nan Swidís Fifth Avenue apartment, which would further establish their reputation, it was Sillsís own three-roomer, bought for him by his father, which the design world found most beguiling. I remember Annette de la Renta looking at some photos of Sillsís living room, utterly fascinated but hard put to explain it: ëëThere are very few rules,íí she said, ëëbut one of them is that you should always have a little light blue.íí He did. And which other decoratorís work of the moment is interesting to Stephen Sills? ëëI donít know if designers work that hard now to do something outside the familiar,íí he answers measuredly. ëëNow a lot of what you see in magazines is just upscale West Elm.íí In the run-up to the millennium, Sills received ó and deserved ó all the attention a decorator could ever ask for, but that sudden success did not come without a price. An article that was published on Sills and Huniford in New York magazine in 2000 described two scandals: a lawsuit filed by a wealthy Philadelphia client, Dennis Alter, who accused the decorators of outrageous price inflating; as well as the contretemps that resulted when Sills and Huniford allowed their Bedford, N.Y., house to be featured at the same time in issues of Vogue and Elle Decor, unbeknownst to the magazinesí