Elsie de Wolfe

We love unusual people, and Elsie de Wolfe (aka Lady Mendl) is one of our favorites.  She basically invented the occupation of Interior Designer, and was one of the first to throw out the heavy, smothering taste of the Victorian/Edwardian interior.  She caused a sensation with her decorative scheme for the Colony Club in New York, designed by Stanford White, and rose to fame and riches as advisor and decorator for Henry Clay Frick's new mansion on Fifth Avenue (now the Frick Museum).

All this aside, her personal life is what we really love about Elsie.  Openly living with a woman "friend" Bessie Marbury at the turn of the 20th century, she cultivated the good life like few have before or since.  Later in life she married Sir Charles Mendl, taking everyone including Bessie by surprise.  Installed in the "ugliest house in Beverly Hills" during the war,  she was an early supporter of Tony Duquett and Ludwig Bemelmans, another of our favorite people.  She appears as the centerpiece of Bemelmans book 'The One I Loved the Best', which is also what she had engraved on the tombstones of her poodles, of which there were several -  all named Blue-Blue.

This tidbit from Bemelmans pretty much sums her up:  Her pretty little red Faberge clock "cost a fortune and it's never kept the right time, but I love it.  Besides, there is always someone around to to tell you what time it is.  Coombs, what is the right time?"  The butler looked at his wristwatch and said, "We're approaching cocktails milady."  What's not to love?