Interview with the interior designer of the elite, a well-known socialite in Manhattan, London and Budapest
1.You started your career in the fashion industry in Manhattan. What did you learn from the work at VOGUE, at Harper’s BAZAAR and at GQ magazines, or at Elizabeth Arden?
I actually started my professional life in retailing. Fresh out of school I was thrilled to be hired for a very special shop in New York in the late 1960’s. The shop was one of the most extravagant and luxurious places I’ve seen in my life. Named “Splendiferous” it was designed by the team of Zajac and Callahan who took their inspiration from The Royal Pavilion at Brighton. The carpet was red moire, the walls were gilded and the shoe salon had a draped ceiling made of bamboo that was motorised to sway back and forth as if to be effected by an invisible breeze. The lift was lacquered red with faux marble cornices and mirrored mosaic walls. All in all the effect was stunning and certainly nothing like anything New York had ever seen before or even after. The opening night was heightened by the personal appearance of Audrey Hepburn who came to represent a collection of makeup as well as the perfumes of Hubert de Givenchy – her famously favourite designer. I was really very lucky to become the creative director of this extravagant jewel on East 56th Street. When I went to the job interview the owners Terry and Gerry hired me immediately. That brought me into contact with some of the most famous people of the time, from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Audrey Hepburn to Lisa Minelli who introduced me to her sister Lorna Luft, who in turn introduced me to her mother Judy Garland. This time was close to her last days in New York during her stay at the St. Moritz Hotel.
The extravagant and costly opulence of Splendiferous proved to be too much for the tiny retail operation and so it closed around 1969 or 1970. Splendiferous was located directly across the street from the side door of the magnificent department store Bonwit Teller at the corner of 56th and 5th Avenue. These were the days before the hideously tacky Trump Tower took its place. Bonwit Teller was the only real competition to Bergdorf Goodman which was just across the Avenue and one street up. So when Splendiferous closed I simply sprinted across the street to the employment office of Bonwit Teller where I was put in the fashion department to assist the director Ernestine Gaines with the 5th Avenue windows. This was another dream New York job which put me in contact with Andy Warhol who (aside from his illustration work across the road at I Miller) was also involved with the display windows facing 5th Avenue. I met Salvador Dalí who also helped with the windows as well as all the great American designers of the time. Salvador Dalí and I would meet again about 10 years later. When Trump tore down the magnificent art deco Bonwit Teller to put up his testament to bad taste and vulgarity called Trump Tower. Bonwit Teller closed and I was out of a job. I moved on.
The former luxury department store Bonwit Teller
I was introduced to a NY fashion photographer who heard I had a bit of taste. He asked if I could style a job for him for the magazine Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ) which was owned by Esquire magazine in those days. I was noticed by the beloved art director Harry Coulianous. So loved was Harry that everyone at the magazine, as well as all the models used by the magazine, called him ”Mama”. Harry was our mother, father and best friend all wrapped into one. A great man who was unfortunately taken from us during the height of the AIDS epidemic that ravaged the New York creative world.
Harry introduced me to other photographers several of whom took me along to their sittings at VOGUE and Harper’s BAZAAR where I started to do makeup for photography. It was at VOGUE that my editor Jade Hobson asked me to work with Irving Penn. The great Irving Penn! I then realised what it was like for a photographer to create real art. Every moment with this man was a fascination to me. He was held in such high esteem that everyone went shoeless in his studio and needless to say there was no smoking. During those days of mostly everyone smoking cigarettes, it was particularly funny to me when I passed a door to a fire escape on my way to Mr. Penn’s studio. I noticed smoke coming from under the door so I opened it. Staring back at me were several of VOGUE magazine’s highest level fashion editors (names withheld) with cigarettes in hand as they sat on the steps before going to work. One, very well known lady turned to me and said “Richard dear, we would do anything for Mr. Penn, even smoking sitting on the back steps in our stocking feet!” I will never forget that image. I will also never forget my work with Irving Penn.
2.After a successful career in fashion you decided to change to interior design and move to London. You have build up a business with prominent list of clients. You work for the Qatari royal family and for the richest man of Pakistan. It sounds amazing.
In the mid 1980’s I sensed a change in New York. The clubs and restaurants I knew well were closing, style, culture and manners were changing. I started to spend more of my time in London as we had mostly permanent accommodations at the Ritz Hotel. This period of adjustment lasted for almost 10 years although I was extremely “well adjusted” because I had spent that amount of time in such a wonderful hotel. I decided that it was time to say farewell to New York and to start my new life in London as well as the rest of Europe. This was the best choice I’ve ever made in my life. Naturally after about 10 years at the Ritz I established a fairly wide circle of friends from many levels of society. From the cultural and artistic to the purely social creatures of London, I managed to form a very decent, but manageable, group of friends and acquaintances that would help to form my new life.
Purely for money, although my heart was no longer in it, I continued to work in the photography studios on ad campaigns for fashion and beauty. This was thankfully short lived when a friend and I decided to chip in equal shares to open an interior design shop in Walton Street in the very fashionable neighbourhood of Knightsbridge. Those were the days when London shops were hardly known for their fabulous display windows. With my 5th Avenue background we changed all of that! I still remember our Marie Antoinette inspired Christmas window where all the gifts seemed to be falling from under the wide skirts (and between the stockinged and gartered legs) of the 18th century queen. It was such a hit, that Harrods copied the window straight across all of their Brompton Road windows the following Christmas!
One of Mr. Adams’ most gorgeous works. He designed it for himself.
Our little shop managed to attract all the right people for our interior design business. Attracted by the decorations and accessories we sold they would come in and very many times walked out having secured us with a project. We had the greatest pleasure of working for several of the Kuwaiti royals, a wonderful publishing family from Kuwait, several members of the very smart American expat community as well as the Qatari royal family. We met the world in that tiny shop and our experiences were priceless. I lived through many historical moments. On September 11th 2001, while chatting with a glamorous Indian client of mine, her chauffeur announced to me that my birthplace was under attack.
It was in our Walton Street shop that Princess Diana popped her head in to enquire about the price of a fabric we had displayed in the window. I remember her glowing face, blush and smile when she said “Oh dear, I think I might need to get some sort of approval to spend that”. That moment was shortly before the terrible accident.
We of course had many “colourful” characters from all levels of society. I remember one very likeable gent who pulled up in his “HIS” Rolls Royce while his wife was sitting outside in her “HERS” Rolls. He came in, fell down onto the carpet with his arms outstretched and said “I would like a leopard patterned carpet in exactly this shape.” So, I knelt down with a roll of brown paper and made a flat pattern of his body there on the floor. The pattern was cut and a leopard velvet patterned carpet was made up. He was delighted. I would often see this vivacious gent at one of my favourite London restaurants. He was always the life of the party. He was also very extravagant to say the least. When I stopped seeing him I enquired how he was and I was told that he had sadly duped some “business connections” after which his body was found in the river. Well we came across all types of London society in our little shop.
3.Thanks to your line of work you had the opportunity to meet some of the most prominent members of high society in Manhattan and London. Tell us above them!
When you involve yourself in businesses that cater to a higher than usual socio-economic group, you of course tend to meet a certain level of person that is hardly run of the mill. Naturally, interior designers are hired by people who can afford them. I’m not saying that a person shouldn’t design and decorate their own home and I know that many people do a fantastic job of it. It is however true, that when you need a professional job done you hire the professional that can provide a level of expertise, taste, knowledge, practicality as well as the style that might not otherwise be achievable. This of course costs money and the people that can afford this luxury are usually very well off as well as sometimes famous. My business does, in that case, help to create a circle of privilege as well as the fame that sometimes goes hand in hand with it.
I have many wonderful memories and stories to tell regarding the well known people whom I’ve come across in my life. Above I mentioned my brief but lovely meeting with Princess Diana. When I think of these often amusing stories, one that took place long before my professional career began specifically sticks in my mind. During my early days in New York I once went to collect my mother at her hairdressers. I think she might have been taking me to lunch. When we called the lift to leave the salon, the lift door opened and a very chic lady walked out of it. My mother stopped her and said “Hello, how nice to see you again. We had a wonderful time last night, I hope you enjoyed it as well”. The lady nodded and said it was lovely. We then proceeded into the lift and went down. My mother turned to me and said “You know darling, I have a great memory for faces but I can never remember names. That’s why I didn’t introduce you to that lady”. I said to her “Well mother, how nice it was to see that you were so friendly to Audrey Hepburn” At that moment mother became rather speechless!
More recently in 2005, I was invited by very dear friends of mine to a dinner given by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle. It was a concert and dinner in honour of the Prince’s favourite orchestra The English Chamber Orchestra. The evening started with a cocktail reception in (I believe) the White Drawing Room where everyone assembled for drinks and a bit of chat before the concert. When Prince Charles entered the room I was surprised to see him come directly over to my little group, point his finger at me and with a broad smile and said “And we have met before”. We actually did meet about a year previously at a polo lunch given by a mutual friend of ours where the Prince played before the lunch. I don’t think that he actually remembered me but it was possible that an adviser told him he did. In any case, his opening line was a real icebreaker and it really did get the party started. I must admit, what led to a further warming of the crowd was when I said to the Prince “Oh, I am very impressed, you have a truly remarkable memory. I’m however very embarrassed to say that I’ve forgotten your name!!!” There was at that moment a spontaneous burst of laughter from everyone including the Prince. The moment was actually photographed but the shot was never released. I do however have an image of us in calmer conversation several moments later. I do remember the Prince introducing Maxim Vengerov who played for us after the reception and before dinner. This was a night to remember!
4.You lived in Budapest for a decade. Your lavish house parties were famous in the city, the society adored them. Which parties were the most luxurious beside your own?
At some point in 2003 I became intrigued by Budapest. I made several short trips back and forth, fascinated by the architecture as well as the cultural aspects of the city. When I mentioned Budapest and my new passion for it to a friend, she told me that the Four Seasons Hotel was about to open and we should be there for that. That was in July of 2004. So off we went to spend several days in this magnificent city and to be spoiled in its magnificent Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace. During our stay we decided to peek at some properties purely as an entertainment. I rang my dear friend and estate agent Zoltan Szemes who showed us a perfect little studio apartment with a terrace overlooking the Danube. We had a nice afternoon seeing some of the lovely apartments for sale in Budapest’s smart and very international 5th district. That evening we had a very glamorous dinner with friends at Gundel. With a bit too much champagne, fois gras and violin music still swirling in our heads the next morning at breakfast, as a whim, I decided to buy the little studio overlooking the Danube.
That little studio led to a hugely fun and active social life for me in the city. With parties, operas, concerts, galleries and wonderful new friends I needed some place where I could entertain. I sold the studio and stepped up through several more progressively larger apartments until I purchased a 16 room, disheveled mess of an apartment, situated across the first floor of a palace in the 5th district. For an entire year we redesigned it and brought it back to what I hope was considered an elegant home. It was certainly suitable for entertaining as it’s 70 square meter reception room and 5 meter high ceilings easily housed a grand piano as well as (at times) musicians, singers and a hundred people for drinks, food and music. I loved giving parties in that beautiful apartment overlooking the Danube and the Buda hills. I hope that I created a bit of a lost era and maybe even a feeling of what life was once like in that magnificent city on the Duna.
Mr. Adams’ last and most grandiouse apartment in Budapest, in the former private palace of Madame Gerbeaud
Parties and specifically great parties were always my passion. A few hours of fantasy and extravagance, elegance and musical genius, you never know what a great host or hostess will create and what memories you will be left with for the rest of your life. I have been to several of the Metropolitan Museum of Art balls when they were actually grand events – possibly the grandest events to happen in New York. In those days, headed by Diana Vreeland, they were testaments to society, taste, chic and culture. These events have now sadly become tacky commercial so-called celebrity events that resemble cheap side shows – worse even the tawdry circuses that they actually are!
There was one “party of parties” which was actually given by a close friend who rivalled the Metropolitan ball. The event that took place in August of 2014 was something that neither I nor any of the hundred people that were lucky enough to attend will ever forget. Firstly I received a very cryptic message to see if I was going to be available for 5 days at the end of August. I was asked to reserve the time and that an invitation which had to remain secret would follow. Although I knew who the host was I was sworn to secrecy by his team a full year in advance. They were making the arrangements so that his wife (for whom the party was being given) would be none the wiser. Asking 100 people, 100 friends, to keep a secret from each other is a very difficult thing to do. Finally an invitation arrived about 2 months in advance of the date. We were invited to meet at the airport where we flew privately to Dubrovnik for several celebrations after which there would be a cruise down the Dalmatian coast to finally reach Montenegro where there would be further tours, dinners, cocktail parties and several cultural events which would all culminate in a birthday ball. Amazingly, our host took an entire island hotel to accommodate us. When I asked why he took the entire island he said “I wouldn’t want you, of all people Richard, to look out of your window and see a stranger!” On the 4th evening of this grand event was the birthday ball which took place in the 19th century beachfront summer palace of Montenegro. It was a setting that must have been conjured up in a dream. When we arrived at the palace we were shown through it to the gardens where there was a long arbour running alongside the sea shore. The arbour was hung with thousands of lavender roses from which hung clear glass lanterns lit only by the candles within them. As the candles swayed in the gentle breeze of the evening, they created a shadowy, glittering starlight effect over the dinner tables. The tables, literally covered with pink and lavender roses, were also candle lit. The entire scene was magical and other worldly. If the dinner tables and the masses of roses weren’t enough, there was a stage set up towering above the tables along the edge of the sea. It was hung with crystal chandeliers and draped with curtains of blue silk which wafted and floated onto the gentle waves surrounding the stage. On the stage itself was seated the entire musical chamber orchestra, The Trondheim Soloists, who played symphonic music during the dinner. At one point in the evening a gentleman came on stage. He sang one of my favourite arias just before he sang happy birthday to the birthday girl. His voice was so spectacular and so professional that I turned to my dinner companion to tell her that he sounded just like Jose Carreras. My dinner companion, whilst fingering her rather substantial diamond necklace, turned to me and said “Well Richard, that’s because it is Jose Carreras”! After dinner the evening continued on to dancing and then culminated in a spectacular hour long firework celebration along the coast of the Adriatic. It was a party that I will clearly never ever forget!
5.There were not only funny moments in your life but dangerous situations as well.
In the course of our lives, especially if our lives are vibrant socially active ones, by the law of averages from time to time, we could possibly run into some trouble. I must admit that I’ve really enjoyed my life so far. Although I hope that I have many more years of enjoyment to come it did occur to me, in early 2001 that I might have come to the end of the road!
I was with a friend visiting Istanbul which is another one of my other favourite cities. I love the people, the architecture, the opulence of the palaces as well as the markets and the food. To me it’s very much another world – a delight for all the senses. After a long and delectable dinner we headed back to the Swissotel where we were staying . We went up to the bar at about 11PM. There sat a dinner suited man playing Cole Porter on the piano who accompanied a glamorous looking lady singing a stylish version of “Begin The Beguine”. Frank had commented on the moody luxury of the room, the spectacular view high above the Bosphorus, the wonderfully romantic music as well as the huge amount of staff bowing, scraping and making the evening a flawless one. In the midst of all of this, and on my 4th or 5th glass of something, I noticed a group of men entering the room. They were all dressed in white and were carrying what I thought were umbrellas. When I told Frank I thought they must be coming from a costume ball he (also rather jolly at that moment as a result of the amounts of wine we consumed) mentioned how civilised and sophisticated Istanbul was. What with costume balls, live Cole Porter music and fabulous wines it was turning out to be quite an urbane experience indeed.
The Swissotel The Bosphorus and in front of the building is the Ciragan Palace Kempinski luxury hotel
Moments later one of these white suited characters started screaming at me in Russian. It was only then that I noticed he wasn’t wearing a costume but a white balaclava and what I thought was an umbrella was actually a machine gun! The head waiter came over to me and said “I’m terribly sorry Mr. Adams but this Chechen group would like you to lie on the floor with you face down.” So there I was, Savile Row suit and stiff white collar face down on the carpet with a machine gun in my back! My first thought was what would it be like to be shot in the back with a machine gun. When I decided that I probably wouldn’t feel it, I noticed Frank was also on the floor next to me facing the other direction and also now on the floor was an elegantly dressed Chinese lady who was sobbing away in floods of tears. To take the edge off the moment I whispered to the Chinese lady that if she got my collar wet with her tears I would kill her if we survived the ordeal we were going through at that moment! Suddenly the Chechen rebels herded all 100 of us into a tiny storage room behind the bar. After they locked us in we discovered there was an exit through to a fire escape. We quickly clambered down 9 flights of stairs into the garden of the Swissotel where Frank and I managed to hail a taxi to the Ciragan Palace Hotel where we stayed until the coast was clear. It turned out to be a demonstration by the Chechen rebels objecting to Russian involvement in Chechnya. Luckily we were all unharmed which is more than I can say for the group that perished in the Moscow Theatre several months later. Life rewards us in many ways and from time to time life can penalise us as well. I suppose there’s not much we can do about any of that except to make the most of what we’re given by enjoying it all. George Herbert’s adage “living well is the best revenge” were never truer words.
Photos: Gergő Gosztom for Polgári Otthon magazine (portrait), archive, PR (Special thanks to Aspire Home, Budapest based luxury real estate constructor company, for the interior pictures by Gergő Gosztom. And for the company’s owner and general manager, Mr. Alireza Tajik)
2021. február 28.
