I think in some sense all designers can see themselves in Elsie de Wolfe. This feels especially true in the chapter we are starting with today, which is all about proof of concept. She’s moved out of her first house near Manhattan’s Gramercy Park. She’s learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t and now she’s ready to really showcase her ideas.
Showcasing your ideas is hard and expensive work. It’s tough to know if you even have anything worth sharing. But that didn’t seem to have stopped Elsie. She shared little ideas with us. Like I think I mentioned last week, we have photos of her first dining room when she moved in, then when she’d made a few small changes, and then when it had been completely transformed. She shared the progression of her ideas from not-so-great, to pretty nice, to, “let me show you how I can turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse!” And I hope all our listeners can achieve such exciting things in their careers. Elsie’s house in uptown at 123 E 55th wasn’t just a nice place, it was a demonstration to everyone, that a common, ugly type of house could be made wonderful. I’d love to hear from a designer doing the same with a run-of-the-mill suburban house whose front façade is 90% garage. I’m sure Elsie would have figured out an elegant way to park 3 cars on a 50-foot-wide lot and still have something resembling a good house.