For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with creating beautiful surroundings. There’s something deeply aligned in me with creating an outer world that mirrors my inner life. As a little girl, I redecorated my bedroom constantly — moving the dresser from one wall to another, painting an “accent” wall before I knew what that meant, sticking cute decals on furniture, taping up posters of movie stars I had crushes on.
After college, when I moved to New York, my first apartment was a fourth-floor walk-up on York Avenue, over the Raccoon Lodge Bar. I had three hundred dollars in the bank, but I decorated that studio anyway with flea-market finds and used furniture, determined to make a small life feel intentional.
As I got older, the apartments grew larger, but my eye for beauty and order never wavered. When I bought my current place in 2001, it had just been renovated by the previous owner. That didn’t stop me from gutting it and starting over. Since then, I’ve done three full renovations—roughly every five to seven years—each one a way of fine tuning not just the space, but myself.
My most recent redesign may be my last. I’ve entered my peace era. The previous one was in 2017, during my reality-show years, a chaotic, drama-filled time in my life. My apartment reflected that—loud, restless, a stage for performing more than living.
When I left television and finally slowed down, the buzz in my head became impossible to ignore. I could no longer reconcile the drama of my surroundings with the quiet I’d worked so hard to create in my life.
Gone now are the black linen hallways and the hot-pink bedroom. The living room—once all chrome, silver, and four competing shades of blue—has been quieted. Beige walls in Farrow & Ball’s Joa’s White have replaced the drama, and the once-bare modern walls now have traditional French architectural molding, framing my Marilyn portrait like a thought finally given its proper stage.
The black lacquered floors have been stripped back to their natural oak. My vintage Dunbar credenza and wall cabinet were taken down to the natural wood as well, their age encouraged to show. I used the remains of the Manach silk velvet tiger fabric—once famously upholstered on a custom sofa designed by Lee Radziwill in the late sixties—on two absolutely perfect French Louis XVI chairs I found in an antique shop in Princeton, New Jersey.
Everything in my home now has a purpose, a history—either my own or someone else’s. I believe in pre-owned everything. I’m attracted to objects that house other memories. If something doesn’t already carry a life, I’m not terribly interested. Even the building I live in agrees: a converted schoolhouse built in 1887.
My latest find is a marble fireplace that once lived in the original Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It dates to 1931! I found it in a salvage yard in Scranton, Pennsylvania, along with its wooden overmantel mirror. Both pieces still bore the customs stamp on the back: Made in France.
The salvage company hired to remove the hotel’s three hundred fireplaces documented the entire process. Mine came from room 3404. I often wonder what it saw—whose letters were read there, whose afternoon assignations lingered, whose face once stared back from the faded, dulled mirror
But my favorite spot of all is the window. I had new nine-foot mahogany windows installed, creating the perfect place for an extra-wide window seat. It’s here you’ll find me most days—writing my Substack, reading, and looking out over the neighborhood I’ve called home for twenty-five years.
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