In the AfterMath of the 1929 stock market crash, Mrs. John L. Strong (née Flora Feldstein) joined forces with her sister, the owner of a luxury trousseau shop called Bournfield Linens, to create a luxury custom papers and stationery house. What began as a small line of wedding and social papers grew into an iconic company. Soon Mrs. Strong’s business outstripped Bournfield’s space on 57th and 5th Avenue, as New York’s most notable people placed their stationery orders. Flora Strong would ultimately settle at the landmarked 699 Madison Ave., where the
company operates today. From this location, Mrs. Strong took orders from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Barbara Hutton, Bette Davis, Jackie Kennedy, and Babe Paley, as well as the Rockefeller, Astor, Vanderbilt, and DuPont clans. When she died in 1979, the company was sold to Robert and Joy Lewis. Not only did Lewis maintain the standards for papers for which the firm was known, she also engaged master engraver Fred Diefenbach, who crafted dies—now one of the largest and most comprehensive collection of dies from the 19th and 20th centuries.
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