Great Inspiration: My Adventures in Decorating With Notable Interior Designers

One client, multiple decorators, extraordinarily influential rooms—an intimate look at the interiors of a design aficionada both working with preeminent interior designers and creating her own environments.

The decorating evolution of Bryan—one of the great patrons of interior design—has gone from classic modernism to sumptuous traditionalism to romantic eclecticism and everything in between, with the collaboration of such renowned interior designers as Tom Britt, Mica Ertegun, Susan Gutfreund, Mark Hampton, and Studio Peregalli Sartori. Each residence and each room make up an aesthetic memoir that explores those collaborations, reveals insights into the various processes, and inspires others to look at their own spaces and consider a myriad of beautiful and appropriate options. Anecdotes divulge her astute guidance and the charming idiosyncrasies of some of the twentieth century’s greatest decorators.

For Bryan, decorating has been a fifty-year journey of education, relocation, and transformation—with homes in New York City, Palm Beach, East Hampton, Brussels, and Paris to name a few. Each of the twenty-three residences that Bryan has called her own has been a stepping stone in the development not only of one woman’s style, identity, and character but also of American interior-design history.

Katherine Bryan is a Manhattan psychologist and decorator. She has worked with some of the stars of interior design for her own residences. Mitchell Owens is the American editor of The World of Interiors. He has also held editorial positions at Architectural Digest and Elle Decor. Roberto Peregalli and Laura Sartori Rimini are the owners of Studio Peregalli Sartori, a Milan-based interior design and architectural firm. George Gurley is a journalist who has written for publications including the New York Times and Vanity Fair.