Albert Hadley

This is the sketch Albert Hadley did for Mrs. Astor

THE LESSON FROM THIS ROOM Be Direct with your Client—Sometime in the mid-seventies, Albert Hadley was summoned to tea with his longtime friend Brooke Astor, who broke the news that she was planning to hire designer Geoffrey Bennison to revamp the library of her Park Avenue apartment, which had been done by Mrs. Parish. “Sister’s going to be furious with me,” Astor told him. Hadley expressed admiration for Bennison’s sketches, which advocated chintzes. But he recoiled at the plan to keep the room’s ersatz Louis XV paneling, euphemistically known as “Park Avenue French.” “There’s nothing fake in your life except this paneling,” Hadley told Astor. “If I were doing it, I’d make this a twentieth-century room.” Intrigued, she accepted Hadley’s plan to replace the walls with floor-to-ceiling scarlet lacquered bookcases. Ten coats of oxblood-red paint were applied for the right glaze. The result is, indeed, one of the most famous private spaces of the twentieth century.

The finished room. An image of Albert Hadley is super imposed in this picture.

Bottom image from NY Mag Photographer Michael Mundy Top image from Albert Hadley's book