Thursday, August 25, 2011

Ruby Ross Wood

Ruby Ross Wood's decoration of the Dining Room of Swan House, the Edward H. Inman residence, Atlanta, features magnificent antique Chinese hand-painted wallpaper and dramatic silk-taffeta curtains.  Although author Adam Lewis described them as horizontal striped, the word from the museum curator, via Helen Young at Whitehaven blog, is that they are indeed plaid.
Photo:  THE GREAT LADY DECORATORS by Adam Lewis.
One of the great decorating talents that helped to shape interior design as we know it is Ruby Ross Wood.  Born Ruby Ross Pope in 1880 in Monticello, Georgia, and growing up in Augusta as the daughter of a successful cotton broker, she moved to New York City in the early 1900s to continue her freelance writing career for newspapers and magazines.  In 1910, she was hired as a ghostwriter for a series of articles for The Delineator magazine to publish the collection of lectures on interior decorating that Elsie de Wolfe had given to members of The Colony Club, an elite women's organization whose Stanford White-designed clubhouse she decorated in 1905.  (Not to be confused with the current clubhouse designed by architects Delano & Aldrich, this was located at 120 Madison Avenue, and is now home to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts).  The next year, she rewrote the articles in cooperation with de Wolfe and sold them to Ladies Home Journal.  In 1913, the articles were again adapted to create the book The House in Good Taste, a compilation of practical and relatively inexpensive suggestions that proved to be very influential in re-shaping tastes in residential interiors for the twentieth century.
The legendary decorator Ruby Ross Wood.
Photo:  THE GREAT LADY DECORATORS by Adam Lewis.
After the financial failures of her own book The Honest House and a decorating firm, Modernist Studio, she accepted a job from Nancy McClelland at Au Quatrieme, the fourth floor antiques and decorating shop in Wanamaker's department store.  When McClelland left in 1918 to open her own decorating firm, she recommended that Mrs. Wallace F. Goodnow, as she was known then, would become the new manager, an experience that would prove to be invaluable in providing connections with important trade sources and wealthy clients.  Divorcing her husband in 1923, she married Chalmers Wood the next year.  With the financial backing of her socially-connected stock broker husband, she took advantage of the departure for France of New York's then-reining Queen of Decorating, Elsie de Wolfe, and opened her own business as Ruby Ross Wood.

The summer home of Chalmers and Ruby Ross Wood in Syosset, Long Island, New York, was designed by architect William Adams Delano of the noted architectural firm Delano & Aldrich with contributions by Mrs. Wood.  Built 1927-28 on 43 acres off South Woods Road (Syosset-Woodbury Road), it was demolished in 1995.
Photo:  THE ARCHITECTURE OF DELANO & ALDRICH by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker.
Decorating her own apartment as a showcase for her design skills, and moving every year, she soon built a profitable business from former customers of Au Quatrieme and old money connections of her husband.  Published photos of their country house on Long Island, Little Ipswich designed by architects Delano & Aldrich, also enhanced her reputation.

The Stair Hall at Swan House as decorated by Ruby Ross Wood.  The sitting room through the open doors is labeled "Morning Room" on the construction plans but would commonly known as a Living Room.
Photo:  THE GREAT LADY DECORATORS by Adam Lewis.
The best known design by Ruby Ross Wood, however, is the Swan House, Atlanta, now open as a museum.  The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Edward H. Inman, heir to a cotton brokerage and real estate fortune making him one of the richest men in Georgia, is a classical mansion on 28 acres in the fashionable neighborhood of Buckhead.  Commissioned of the Atlanta architectural firm of Hentz, Reid and Adler, associate Philip Trammell Shutze is generally credited as responsible for the architectural design.  But the whole house was done in close collaboration with both Mrs. Inman and Mrs. Wood.  Although the exterior shows Shutze's influence by the Italian Renaissance, Mrs. Inman's love of early English Georgian design, and William Kent in particular, is given preference inside.  The three worked together according to Adam Lewis, author of The Great Lady Decorators, on all the interior architectural details (with the exception of the library whose millwork was executed in England).  It is the Dining Room, in particular that showcases Mrs. Wood's talent.  Antique Chinese wallpaper, as advocated by Elsie de Wolfe, gives life to the room filled with English furniture.  And the Ruby Ross Wood signature of color is given by the bold plaid silk taffeta curtains.
The winter residence of Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott Blair in Palm Beach, Florida, was designed by architect Maurice Fatio.  Located at 1960 South Ocean Boulevard, it was demolished in the early 2000s.
Photo:  BILLY BALDWIN REMEMBERS by Billy Baldwin.
Ross met Billy Baldwin in 1929, but the effects of the country's financial difficulties prevented her from hiring him until 1935.  At that time, one of Ruby Ross Wood's finest commissions, the winter home of Ellen Yullie and Wolcott Blair, was nearing completion in Palm Beach, Florida.  Wolcott was a successful stockbroker whose family owned the Merchant's Bank of Chicago and Ellen's father had been the president of the American Tobacco Company;  their family fortunes were not effected by The Great Depression.

A view of the terrace outside the Living Room, believed to be on the west (Lake Worth) side, of the Wolcott Blair residence with the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Photo:  BILLY BALDWIN REMEMBERS by Billy Baldwin.
No expense was spared for the new house designed by Palm Beach architect Maurice Fatio.  The center of the "H" plan house was the Living Room with five arched windows on each long side that could descend below the floor level using an ingenious water-pump system.  This allowed an unencumbered connection with the garden terraces on both sides of the room.  The view to the west included the pool and a lawn to Lake Worth, and the view to the east, across the lawn to the beach (via a tunnel under South Ocean Boulevard) and the Atlantic Ocean.
A view of the Living Room of the Wolcott Blair residence, Palm Beach, decorated by Ruby Ross Wood.
Photo:  BILLY BALDWIN REMEMBERS by Billy Baldwin.
Reinforcing the indoor-outdoor relationship of the room, white lacquered tubs filled with tall white lilies were placed between each of the windows.  A comfortable but sparse arrangement of furniture allowed the big room to be used for a variety of activities, including serving as a passage.  In Billy Baldwin Remembers the decorator notes that the walls were "buff, pale, almost not there at all.  The trim was purest white, and the floors ancient Cuban marble the color of parchment."  Because of a shortage in the delivery of the marble, a wide border of bleached cypress was employed as a flooring border around the room, a successful compensation that Baldwin credited to Wood's ingenuity.
Another view of the Living Room of the Wolcott Blair residence, Palm Beach, decorated by Ruby Ross Wood.
Photo:  BILLY BALDWIN REMEMBERS by Billy Baldwin.

The upholstery fabrics were either white or tan with cream welting, and several chairs were slipcovered in what Baldwin referred to as "Elsie de Wolfe's famous leopard chintz".  Sofa slipcovers and curtains were a heavy-textured beige cotton from Sweden.  A pair of stripped pine cabinets flank the pair of doors at one end of the room, contributing to the "quiet no-colors" as Baldwin described the scheme.  A pale fruitwood Louis XV writing table was in the center of the room, topped with a scalloped cap of honey-brown leather edged with white carpet binding tape. The lighting was supplied by white table lamps and four carved wood torcheres in the form of palm trees.  The whole effect was an enormous success and led to other decorating commissions in Palm Beach, including several for members of the Wanamaker family.

A party at the home of James Amster in New York City's famed Amster Yard complex.  From left, the butler (with back to camera), James Amster, Marian Hall, Ruby Ross Wood (seated), Billy Baldwin, William Pahlman, and Elizabeth Draper.  Although there are two chandeliers, note the narrow width of the room as evidenced by the placement.
Photo:  THE GREAT LADY DECORATORS by Adam Lewis.
 Adam Lewis states in The Great Lady Decorators that Ruby Ross Wood was the top decorator in New York City from 1935 to 1942, when Baldwin was drafted into the military.  After the war, Baldwin worked for a year for Mrs. John Jessup, the leading Palm Beach decorator.  In 1946, he returned to New York to work again with Mrs. Wood who had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  She died in 1950 and Baldwin continued the business only long enough to complete the current projects.  Adam Lewis also contends that Wood and Baldwin were the most celebrated in American interior decorating, without equal until Mrs. Henry Parish, 2nd, and Albert Hadley formed their partnership, Parish-Hadley, Inc.  This Wood-Baldwin association and the Palm Beach Blair residence has significance in the next post of The Devoted Classicist, with this essay acting as a prelude of sorts.

Many thanks go to JANSEN author James Archer Abbott who is also a noted authority on Billy Baldwin for directing me to the Palm Beach home of the Wolcott Blairs.  And also thanks go to my very talented Atlanta blogging colleagues Barry of The Blue Remembered Hills, Jennifer of The Peak of Chic, and Helen of Whitehaven for consultation on Swan House.


Adam Lewis's book with forward by Bunny Williams The Great Lady Decorators, The Women Who Defined Interior Design, 1870-1955 published by Rizzoli, New York, 2009, is available for purchase at a discount of the regular retail price here.   Although Billy Baldwin Remembers is out of print, vintage copies may be purchased here.  Reproductions of the Elsie de Wolfe and Ruby Ross Wood collaboration The House in Good Taste can be purchased here.  Both The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich by Peter Pennoyer and Maurice Fatio:  Palm Beach Architect by Kim I. Mockler can be purchased here.

17 comments:

  1. One of my students is from Monticello GA and her pronunciation sounds to me like "Mon'cella" - not like the pronunciation of Thomas Jefferson's house. Also, the Bank of Monticello building in Monticello, GA, resembles Jefferson's house. Pretty town with lots of character.

    By the way the people at the Atlanta History Center tend to play down Woods' role at the Swan House - not sure why. I don't agree with 'em!

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  2. Blue, I can understand that the average person might look at an 85 year old room by a decorator like Ruby Ross Wood and, based on the new homes of the rich that are published today, think it was not done by a New York design professional. Apparently there is documentation among the Inman records that Miss Emily (as Mrs. Inman was known) was adamant about hiring Wood as well as stipulating that the end result should look like it was the work of Elsie de Wolfe. While I would say it looks more Wood than de Wolfe, that is not necessarily a bad thing considering the house. And that is not to say that the Lady of the House did not have good taste; apparently there are also records that show she travelled to England frequently during the three years that the house was under construction, buying antiques and accessories.

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  3. Marvelous and most interesting post. I have known next to nothing about Mrs. Wood, and this was a useful primer. I look forward to your next post! Reggie

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  4. The Swan House is certainly a glorious house and one that visitors to Atlanta should see. Looking forward to reading more about the Blair residence in PB.

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  5. Jennifer, Swan House is a treasure, for sure. I am shifting gears for the next post, but it was important that all my readers were familiar with Ruby Ross Wood, Billy Baldwin and the Blairs' house for maximum appreciation.

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  6. Reggie, Ruby Ross Wood is certainly deserving of a book that showcases her talent.

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  7. Fabalus!! There us very little I would want to tweak in that Palm Beach living room 75 years later!

    In full disclosure, is there not a relative of yours here?

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  8. C.A.W., this may be a borderline call, but I am afraid there is enough distance in the bloodline to prevent my claiming a relative in this case. But thanks for commenting!

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  9. An interesting post as always. But you do too few posts, we loyal readers want more to read! :)

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  10. what a priceless post!!
    a few years ago i did an 'elsie' post that featured her book.
    but this is far more interesting than anything i have read on the blogs in a while.
    i may just have to link this to my blog with her picture. xx

    loved the sentence;
    and Ellen's father had been the president of the American Tobacco Company; their family fortunes were not effected by The Great Depression.

    was is the tabacco? which we are still dying from (and me)
    or was it just great wealth?
    hmmm....

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  11. M.L.H.B., I try to post a new essay every four to seven days; my "other job" prevents more frequent posts. But your encouragement is appreciated.

    Renee, the Blair clan has a long and distinguished history in the Chicago area, so I am afraid I threw you off with a tobacco connection.

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  12. FABULOUS in post, I loved every ounce of it. If I could have attended, or at least been a fly on the wall at the Amster party in the last image ...

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  13. My favorite aspect or Mrs. Wood's work is how the decoration works with the architecture. The room itself is primary; it never seems stuffy or overwhelmed by furniture and hangings, etc. She also seems to have an innate understanding and appreciation of scale.

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  14. TSL, I regret that I inadertedly cropped the diminuative designer Nancy McClelland from the photo of the party at Amster Yard. What a gathering of talent! I was fortunate to have met James Amster who created the compound in the late 1940s, creating apartments in a series of small buildings sharing a common courtyard. In addition to Mr Amster, tenants included Billy Baldwin, fashion designer Norman Norell, and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Although protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the complex was involved in a controversy in 2002 when the new owners, Instituto Cervantes, demolished the back buildings during the excavation of the courtyard. The non-profit cultural group created by the Spanish government was permitted to build an underground auditorium but the scope of destruction exceeded the allowable scope. None the less, the project was completed in 2003 with a dedication ceremony presided over by the Prince of Asturias, Spain.

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  15. Parnassus, more will be revealed on this same observation on the next post. I did not include a watercolor of the Blair Living Room by the late decorator Mark Hampton. His rendering appeared to be a cropped view of the very same photo but with a large picture added between the two doors at the end of the room. I was unable to determine if the picture was in place during the Blair occupancy or if it had been added by Mark as an artistic privilege.

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  16. Not only is the fabric for the Swan House dining room curtains plaid, it was a mistake, sort of. As Ruby's unpublished diaries attest, the silk she selected in England for the dining room was actually a memo depicting the various colorways in which that plaid could be ordered. It wasn't meant to be printed as shown here. And she kept ordering it and ordering it, only to have the vendor finally say, when she stepped into the shop after some years' absence, "So you're the crazy American who keeps ordering that!"

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  17. Aesthete, I cannot thank you enough for this anecdote! This is a great example of how blogs are a wonderful venue for the exchange of information.

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