It would be impossible for me to name my favorite American interior designer. Designers who are traditionalists, modernists, and everything in between have captured my heart and inspired my rooms. But the late Sister Parish and Albert Hadley, of the well-known and now long-gone firm of Parish Hadley in New York, are two of my favorites. While their influences were many, in my mind their work is as American and as rich in narrative as the pages of the names in the books at Ellis Island.
What better way to celebrate than by covering your porch chair in Mrs. Parish’s Mahalo performance fabric in Prussian Blue? Or Burmese or Burma in Summer Blue on which to prop your feet? Red striped rug? Hooray, U.S.A.!
Mr. Hadley was not to be outdone. Trixie, with its bold red stars and black dots on a cream ground, nearly always stops me in my tracks. It graces the ceiling of my office now.
