Adam Lewis’s Billy Baldwin

Last weekend, I attended a symposium on hometown boy-made-good, Billy Baldwin, about whom I’ve written many times. The keynote speaker was Adam Lewis, whose book, Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator (2010, Rizzoli) will be published later this month. I was glued to my seat listening to Mr. Lewis speak about Billy Baldwin. Mr. Lewis has been working on this book for years and it was like putting a huge puzzle together, because there were so many facets to BB that were each seen by a few people.  He had his Baltimore side, which he outgrew fairly early, and then the New York Side, the Nantucket side, the Society side, the Gay-in-the-50s side and many others.

His latter years were not happy ones, with lots of friends dying in succession, mainly of lung cancer. I won’t give away the entire story, because you should buy the book, but there are myriad stories and tales, along with loads of lush and gorgeous pictures. So many of the design pieces that we take for granted today are because of the amazing Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator.

Thanks to Mr. Lewis for writing this book which will become an instant must-have for any design devotee!