This week the 42nd annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House, the big kahuna of design events, opened in a landmarked Madison Avenue mansion, revealing interiors that have been lacquered, paneled, leathered, and marbled by designers such as Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Vicente Wolf, and Christopher Peacock. The Mansion on Madison, a 26,190-square-foot house labeled by the New York Times as "finally, the showplace [Kips Bay] deserves," is one of midtown Manhattan's Villard Houses built by prominent NYC firm McKim, Mead & White in the early 1880s. Participants got their paws on three of its six floors, making good use of those 16-foot-tall ceilings, original wood paneling, limestone walls, and stairwells larger than many New Yorkers' entire apartments. As grand as the bare bones may be, this is, in fact, a decorator's showcase—and decorate they did. Markham Roberts' "gentleman's study" includes lacquered turquoise walls, cork ceilings, and narwhal tusks; Gideon Mendelson's "lady's lair" boasts live tulips with razor-sliced petals and a rubber doormat made of Barbie dolls; Alexa Hampton's "sitting room folly" displays lanterns she bought in Chinatown for $2. And that's not even mentioning William Georgis' crucifixion-themed table. Intrigued? Take a full tour, below.
· Kips Bay Decorator Show House [official site]
· Rocking the Palazzo [NYT]
· All Show Houses posts [Curbed National]
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