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The irony is that this studio would become his most photographed project.īaldwin made his assistant, Arthur Smith, a partner in the firm in 1971 and the name was changed to Baldwin, Martin & Smith. The government garnished income for the rest of his life and he was forced to sell his home and move into a studio on East Sixty-first Street. To keep him out of prison, a client/friend paid his fines.

Due to errors on his personal accounting, he was indicted on federal income tax evasion.

In the early 1960's Billy Baldwin suffered a tremendously embarrassing personal setback. Paleys, Kenneth's hair salon and the Round Hill Club in Greenwich. By the 1960s, just about every American taste-making blue blood was his client, including the Nan Kempner, the Paul Mellons, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Diana Vreeland, the William S. After the project was published in Vogue, business began to boom. One of the firm's first clients was renowned dress designer Mollie Parnis. The name of the firm was changed in 1955 to Baldwin & Martin, Inc. In 1952, Billy and his assistant at Ruby Ross Wood, Edward Martin, opened Baldwin Interiors. He arrived five years later and worked for her until she died in 1950, absorbing all of her decorating wisdom, which he later distilled down to “’the importance of the personal, of the comfortable, and of the new.” After her death, he stayed with the firm for two years to assist in finishing any outstanding commissions and to wind down operations. She promptly wrote to him declaring it “a beacon of light in the boredom of the houses around it,” and invited him to come to the city to assist in her business as soon as the economy improved. In 1930, Ruby Ross Wood, one of New York’s grand dame decorators, visited a stylish house that Baldwin had created.

STITCH DESIGNER LOUISVILLE HOW TO

Benson's tutelage that Billy learned about the decorating business, including how to effectively work with drapery and upholstery workrooms, manage installations, and how to attract and retain clients. Benson, to do her a favor and employ her son. At this point, his mother asked her longtime interior decorator, C. Billy went on to attend Princeton for a short time until he was asked not to return due to poor grades.īack in Baltimore, Billy briefly worked at his father's insurance company and then at a local newspaper. His father, who was worried about his son spending too much time with his mother, sent his son away that year to the Westminster School for Boys in Simsbury, Connecticut. Billy would come to share his father’s love of clothing and later in life would be named to the International Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame.īilly attended the Gilman School for Boys in Baltimore, except for one year when he was fifteen. The two would be outfitted with custom suits, jackets, and shoes.

Twice a year, William Baldwin, Sr.- a handsome man with a reputation for being fastidious about his grooming and attire- would take young Billy to the see the Saville Row tailors visiting Baltimore from London. Later in life, he would credit that childhood visit for first instilling in him a love of interior design. He credited Matisse “for emancipating us from Victorian color prejudices” and advocated for his palette of bright, bold hues. Claribel Cone, the influential art-collecting sisters and friends of Gertrude Stein. When Billy was ten years of age, he encountered the work of Henri Matisse for the first time in the Baltimore home of Etta and Dr. His father owned a reasonably successful insurance agency and his mother hailed from one of the wealthiest families in Maryland, with roots back to colonial Connecticut. was born and grew up in a fashionable neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Without question, the ones with the most dog-eared pages are about Billy Baldwin, who actually disliked the term designer and preferred to be called a decorator. In our office, we all keep a cache of design books behind our desks for reference. The same holds true for interior design professionals, who regularly seek to reinterpret great design from the past for their own clients. Most design aficionados have 'Design Heroes'- designers they look to for inspiration.

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