The 49th Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse in New York City, open now through May 28, is rich with stories — some personal, some historical and others purely, delightfully invented.
For starters, there’s the location, a stately early-20th-century townhouse at 125 East 65th Street, the same address where the showhouse — which raises money for the nonprofit Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club — was staged in 2017. Designed by Charles A. Platt, an architect whose clients included Roosevelts and Astors, the 35-foot-wide Georgian-style brick residence was acquired by magazine titan Henry Luce in 1944 and gifted to the China Institute, which used it for offices and exhibitions before relocating downtown a decade ago.
“The selection of pieces was chosen to illustrate beauty through the ages.”
Throughout the mansion’s five floors, two dozen leading designers have transformed nearly every corner of its interior. And this year, no designer dug deeper into the past for inspiration than Jeremiah Brent, who created a sanctuary-like space conceived as a dressing room and study for Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of beauty. For her vanity, he chose a Sculptural gold-tone bronze table by Aline Hazarian from Maison Gerard, pairing it with a 19th-century bronze mirror embellished with leaf and shell forms from Eric Appel. Lined in Phillip Jeffries suede, the room is outfitted with a sophisticated mix
of vintage and contemporary furnishings, featuring a mid-century Jacques Adnet oak cabinet and an English Art Deco Daybed, both from Newel. Marc Phillips crafted the custom rug with a motif representing Hathor that was copied from an Egyptian makeup palette. “We imagined Hathor getting ready in the morning at her vanity, relaxing, looking at all of her things, contemplating design and art and what beauty is,” says Holly Hayden Taylor, Brent’s executive design director. “The selection of pieces was chosen to illustrate beauty through the ages.”
