Architectural Digest
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Camp is suddenly all the rage. As the topic of the Metropolitan Museum’s ingenious new exhibition at the Costume Institute, “Camp: Notes on Fashion”—a witty nod to Susan Sontag’s groundbreaking 1964 essay, “Notes on Camp”—the word still defies easy explanation. But the likelihood is that when you see it, camp will make you smile.
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When designer Steven Gambrel visited a Manhattan couple’s apartment on the Upper East Side for the first time, he was captivated by their 1912 building’s Renaissance palazzo architecture—and by its rich history. The work of the venerable firm McKim, Mead & White, the 12-story limestone structure was commissioned by James T. Lee, a grandfather of…
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When Palm Beach, Florida, was heralded as a subtropical paradise in the early 1900s, Charles Munn Jr., a social arbiter known as Mr. Palm Beach, hired superstar architect Addison Mizner to build a Mediterranean Revival mansion for grand entertaining. The fête set flocked accordingly. But over the ensuing decades the residence, called Amado—Spanish for “beloved”—suffered…
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Working with Mario is always a great adventure,” says longtime Manhattan society figure Patricia Altschul, fuchsia-caftaned and lounging on a pale-blue-checked bergère in the double drawing room of her new home in Charleston, South Carolina. Mario is, of course, Mario Buatta, the irrepressible New York decorator who glazed the walls of the space in a…
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Among the perils of buying a prewar New York apartment are the ravages wrought by previous generations of ambitious owners, who have ripped out original moldings or installed newfangled—but rapidly obsolete—features to keep in step with changing fashions.
