Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Mario Buatta, and I am delighted to share highlights today. Known as the “Prince of Chintz,” Buatta is a legend in the design world who has been designing homes for the elite for over fifty years. He was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 1985. I have been in love with Buatta’s romantic chintz-filled rooms ever since I was a young girl, and his work has been most influential in cultivating my passion for interior design. So when he agreed to visit with me, thanks to Patricia Altschul, I was thrilled! Buatta immediately put me at ease with his famous charm, wit, and warmth. Two-and-a-half hours later, I felt as if we had been friends forever! I realized that Buatta’s interiors are indeed a reflection of his warm and gracious nature. They are always elegant and refined, yet cozy and comfortable with a dash of whimsy. They immediately draw you in for a nice long chat.
If you haven’t yet read Mario Buatta – Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration, it is simply a must. What strikes me most is the timelessness of the rooms. Of course photo quality will date any image, but if it weren’t for that, you would be hard-pressed to determine which rooms were designed in the 1960s and which are from today. In fact, Buatta told me, “I look at my book, and I look at my past jobs and they all look the same to me because they all have the same feeling – they don’t have the feeling of having been done yesterday. You can’t put a date on them. There is something in my brain that works that way.” Intrigued, I was determined to learn more. Buatta has been credited for bringing English country style to America. What I didn’t realize is that he quite literally did so, mentored directly by John Fowler, the British designer who invented the look.
Since Buatta and I both share a passion for history and appreciate the importance of historic reference in interior design, today I will focus on his early history and how other legendary designers helped influence and shape his career. Below are excerpts from my interview with Mario Buatta…

Mario shows his playful nature, circa 1980s, in his chintz-filled sample room. Photo by George Lange via 1stdibs.
MARIO’S CHILDHOOD:
I asked Buatta if he has a formula for the “Mario Buatta” look that has withstood the last 50 years, and he answered, “I have a wonderful gift, and I don’t know who gave it to me, whether it was my mother or my father, but I can see years ahead what’s happening, and in another maybe 20 years, chintz will be forgotten.” I was on the edge of my chair!! And then, in classic Buatta style he said, “I’m teasing… I have no idea. But I have always loved traditional decoration.”

This is the first room – a decorators show house in Greenwich, Connecticut – Buatta ever had published. It was featured in the 1969 issue of House & Garden.
Ironically, Buatta grew up in a home on New York’s Staten Island that was entirely white and art deco in style. It was “a very cold house – a beautiful house right out of the deco period – but I just never felt comfortable in it,” he said. “My mother and father thought of antiques as second hand furniture.” He then shared the following stories:
“I bought my first antique when I was 11 years old. For $12 I bought an 18th century English writing box with a flat top and inlay on the front…. The inside was all drawers and nooks with pink paper, it was lovely. I brought it home and paid for it on a layaway plan – 50 cents a week – and my father said ‘Where are you going with that’ and I said my room, he said ‘No you’re not, I don’t where that came from or who had that before you.’ So I had to put it in the garage for three days, and I think more things crawled into it than crawled out of it! So then I put it in my room and started eliminating all of my maple boys room furniture.”
“All of my friends at school were mostly WASP-ish, and I would go to their houses and see they way they lived. They always had fresh flowers and magazines and books, and I’d say to my Mom ‘Why don’t we live like that with magazines and books?’ And she would say, ‘Well we have plants. Flowers make a mess and they don’t last long.'”

Mario Buatta’s 1984 Kips Bay Decorator Show House bedroom “that shook the world,” according to Architectural Digest.
Buatta credits his Aunt Mary, whose home was “cozy and full of flowers with beautiful colors,” for inspiring his love of traditional style…
“My Aunt Mary was my mother’s sister, and she had the most beautiful house. It was like a show house because every year when she received the latest House & Garden, which was the Bible in those days, or House Beautiful, she would redo a room to whatever style they were pushing that season. So each room looked like you were in a different house! She was terrific and had a wonderful eye,” he said. “My Aunt Mary always had beautiful gardens and a decorated house that was cozy and comfortable. I used to love to go there… That’s how it all came about. She was constantly doing things and I was fascinated by it all.”
Even in his childhood, Buatta was intrigued by homes and design. “I was always drawing up houses back then. I used to draw all the time in my books at school. I wouldn’t listen to the teacher, I was drawing houses,” he said. “Anyways, I always had a mind for beauty, and I loved England. I loved the way the English lived, I loved the way they decorated… so that all happened when I was young.”

Photo by Gordon Beall for Architectural Digest via Rizzoli
LONDON CALLING:
At 23, Buatta went to Europe for a year with the Parsons School upon the recommendation of Albert Hadley. “When I came back, I worked for B. Altman & Company Department store in the decorating department store where I was made a junior decorator. It was great, but I still wasn’t that inspired until I went to London in 1963 on my own and walked into Colefax & Fowler. I had seen in House & Garden the ‘buttah yellow’ room of Nancy Lancaster, and I wanted to see that room in person” he said.

Nancy Lancaster’s yellow drawing room, as photographed by James Mortimer in 1982. Image via Emily Evans Eerdmans.
Buatta had previously worked for Keith Irvine who came to the United states in 1957 after having been trained by John Fowler. As fate would have it, Buatta’s visit to Colefax & Fowler led him to meet Fowler, the man who would ultimately hold the most influence over his career. The legendary Fowler, also known as the “Prince of Decorators,” created The English country house style with Sibyl Colefax and Nancy Lancaster. And soon, Buatta would bring his signature interpretation of the style across the pond, forever transforming American interior design.

Mario Buatta brings his English country style to a New York brownstone. This living room is on the cover of the book House & Garden’s Best in Decoration.

In 1985, Buatta was hired—along with decorator Mark Hampton—to unify the 112 rooms of Blair House, the President’s guesthouse, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House in Washington, D.C. A three-year renovation joined four houses and a new wing into a cohesive entity. The walls of the Dillon Room, shown, are covered with a hand-painted 18th-century Chinese paper from Gracie. ~ via Architectural Digest ~ Read more about this project, which Buatta says is the one he is most proud of, here and here.
“He had a wonderful sense of humor and he could also be very professorial,” said Buatta of Fowler. Buatta then shared that during their first meeting, “he was laughing at me, and I thought ‘what is he laughing at?’ Well that day I had stopped by the men’s store on Bond Street and I bought a pocket square for my suit. And he had the same one on!”
Fowler then invited Buatta to join him in visiting Nancy Lancaster the following night for her birthday. Lancaster received them in her bedroom as she had the vapors, and she was complaining about the “bloody Americans” invading their country. Buatta asked, “Where did you say this lady is from?” Fowler responded, “She’s American,” and pulled him out by his ear. Lancaster’s secretary came running out saying “This young man is rude! He insulted Mrs. Lancaster!” The next day, Buatta sent her a box of her favorite chocolates. That weekend, Fowler invited Buatta to visit Lancaster at her country home, Hasley Court. Lancaster came running out to the car asking Fowler, “Why did you bring this dreadful man to my house?” Meaning Buatta. “So I didn’t turn off the motor, I thought we were leaving right away. John said, ‘Get out of the car you damn fool!’ And so she started to show me the house, and she said ‘You’re not interested in this, you’re not interested in that.’ And John said, ‘Oh yes he wants to see every nook and cranny!’ So she went about it, and I was just so amazed… just the way she kept everything, and it didn’t look decorated, it just looked cozy and lived in with beautiful things,” said Buatta who enjoyed staying at Lancaster’s country home two subsequent times.

The Charleston home of Patricia Altschul, designed by Mario Buatta. Buatta had designed four homes prior to this Antebellum estate. “It is a very pretty, cozy, happy house,” he said. “Pat is wonderful to work for.”
From 1964 to 1976, Buatta’s Christmases were spent in England. Fowler would take him to clients’ homes and he met curtain makers, lamp shade makers, antique dealers, and other inspiring people. “I used to go to John’s every year at Christmas for about 12 years, and I would go over three times a year on buying trips. He would often invite me to stay in the country. Those weekends were always a lot of fun – the gardens were beautiful, the food was delicious. I learned everything from him. He had a wonderful sense of this ‘undecorated look’ as I called it. When I got a new apartment, I wanted to do yellow walls like Mrs. Lancaster, and so he gave me a chip of paint, but when I got it back to New York it didn’t look right, so I made it even darker. When it was done and printed in House & Garden magazine, I showed it to him and looked at it with squinted eyes and said, ‘Young man if you’re going to copy me you could do a better job!’ And I said, ‘Oh no Mr. Fowler, I didn’t copy you, I was inspired by you.’ And that was that.”

The Fifth Avenue apartment of Hilary Geary and Wilbur Ross, Jr. Buatta also designed their Palm Beach and Southampton homes.
The legendary American designer Sister Parish was also friends with Lancaster and Fowler, and she would visit occasionally while in London. “Sister had an amazing eye for creating rooms that looked like they had always been that way. I learned a lot from her and I learned a lot from John, more than from any other decorators. I loved the shops in Paris and various other design firms, and I appreciated what that they did. I would pick up little things here and there and ask the decorators all about it. Things that you store in your brain, and then you put it together your way,” Buatta said.

The living room in Mario Buatta’s New York apartment, featuring his legendary collection of dog portraits, which he jokingly refers to as his ancestors.

Mario Buatta’s second apartment on 72nd Street. “It was my Rose Cumming period – silver tea-paper walls, dark green woodwork, mercury mirrors, and chintz. You can see one of the first dog paintings I ever bought. I love dogs. Though I don’t have one, I love hanging them on the walls and looking at them,” he said in Mario Buatta – Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration.
“So that was my beginning. Also in my beginning was Keith Irvine who worked for John Fowler for nine years as his assistant. He came to America to work for Mrs. Parish for a year and then started his own business. When I came back from London in ’61 from the Parsons School, I was called by a friend who wanted me to meet Keith Irvine. He offered me a salary of $40 a week, but I was making $140 a week with Mrs. Elizabeth Draper. So I didn’t leave. I should have because a month later I was fired because my hair was too long. It was almost a crew cut, that’s how long it was! She was very sweet to me all through the years, calling to check on how I was doing. But Irvine then hired me for $40. It was amazing. I walked into his office and showroom, and I was just so bowled over by the look – It was that English look of everything looking as though it had been collected over many, many years. So that’s how I learned really through Keith and Fowler. Not any Americans really, except for Mrs. Parish and Albert Hadley who encouraged me to go to Parsons and Europe – he was very helpful to get me on the right track. Whatever it was that I had in me, I think it was that I always admired people who had furniture that looked like it had landed there for years. And I think that is what got me my start. I never liked modern, I never liked contemporary. I just like old. The older it looks the more I like it. Antiques have charm and they have a sense of history. They are romantic, there is something about them,” said Buatta.

The late Aileen Mehle’s New York apartment
ON THE FUTURE:
Mario and I commiserated on the state of interior design today. “Everything is a display,” he said. “It doesn’t look like anyone lives there. So many people don’t know what they are doing, and they place furniture in the weirdest ways. They become decorators over night, and they don’t know the history. They don’t know what was made in 195o or 1850. They don’t learn it and they don’t study it. Young people today have no reference. They don’t want Grandma’s furniture, they don’t want anything brown, they don’t want anything old. It’s weird, it’s very weird. I think it will come back, although not as big as it was like in the ’80s when everything was chintz, chintz, and more chintz.”

Mario Buatta standing in front of his favorite chintz, Floral Bouquet by Lee Jofa. “I have had it in four apartments, I have never changed it, and I wouldn’t. I love it,” he said. “It was a white background and it has turned a little tan-ish. But I still love it, and I would do it all over again.”
Regardless of what the future holds, one thing is certain and that is the lasting impact Mario Buatta has made within the world of interior design and the legacy he will leave. For more on Buatta’s work and his fascinating life, I cannot more highly recommend his book, Mario Buatta – Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration by Mario Buatta with Emily Evans Eerdmans. Some of my favorite images from Buatta’s expansive portfolio are below, along with original artwork by Jennifer Ashley depicting the origins of his magnificent career.

Artwork by Jennifer Ashley

A wonderful interview indeed. Love this series.
My husband gave me the book for Christmas when it first came out – still one of my favorite books – and designers!
Andrea,
What a wonderful interview and photos. I noticed in a lot of the photos that he leaves his ceilings white. Do you know if that is because he uses so much color and pattern on the walls and fabrics? I would be curious his thoughts on painting your ceiling a color. I personally always paint mine other then white.
A wonderful comprehensive post! Thank you Mario and Andrea!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this. I have loved Mario Buatta–St. Mario–ever since that first room in the 1969 H&G. Every place I’ve lived, I have done in some version of this style. The 80s were glorious–you could find tons of things commercially and combine them with things you inherited, picked off the street, found in junk shops, whatever, and create this wonderful ambience. If I make it to heaven, I know it will be decorated by Mario Buatta. MY heaven, anyway.
It is impossible to overstate his dominance in decorating in NY particularly in the 1980s when I lived there. As a California raised recent college graduate I was overwhelmed by the kips bay show houses as well as “grown ups” park avenue homes of this time. People with lesser wealth also decorated this way. The thing that separates Mr Buatta as a decorator I think is his sense of humor about it all, his joviality, his sense of fun – despite an underlying scholarly approach (and the fact that he is an artist and brilliant colorist!) Absolutely no pretentiousness. So unlike a Ralph Lauren room (read “stage set”) Mr Buatta somehow managed to create rooms which were real. And people basically forgot about them, had parties in them, spilled wine, their dogs had accidents – they lived their lives. It was a unique period. People were warmer, kinder, more interesting and educated – and not cynical. I chalk this up largely to Mr Buatta and the personal warmth and genuine happiness he brought to American homes. Today is my birthday – what a present Andrea! Thank you for this great, great post!
Mario Buatta has always been my decorating hero, since the early 80’s when his rooms were featured in so many of the wonderful magazine of that time…I have always decorated this way and always will, I love Chintz, lots of color, whimsy, warmth and Dogs…Mr. Buatta opened my eyes and my mind to this and I never looked back…I live in hope that some day in the near future Decorators will come out of the incredibly boring style that exists now which for me shows a total lack of personality or imagination, but fortunately for us who want to boldly go down the color road, we can…
Thank you for the post- it made my day! I was feeling at a loss recently when trying to decorate a home we recently purchased. I have storage full of antiques and even custom chintz draperies from the 80’s that I can’t bear to part with. I suppose I was thinking that my children and grandchildren wouldn’t appreciate this style of decor since they are constantly bombarded with catalogs from retailers that are heavily influenced by the rustic farmhouse trend currently in style. I can’t deny what I love which is anything English. I think I will get those chintz draperies out and hang them!
Jan
Delightful interview and story with Mario Buatta! His book is a favorite and his work inspires me always! Thank you Andrea
Love Chintz, have always loved the way Mario Buatta put things together. I have his book and love it too!
What a wonderful article! So many beautiful pictures!
It’s true that Mrs. Parish adored Mario.
And she was not particularly fond of decorators, so that is saying a lot.
Thank you for this beautiful testament to the wonderful designs Mr. Buatta has created. I had the delightful pleasure of meeting him at one of his High School Reunions many years ago on SI, NY. The world is a prettier place because of his talents.
Now you’re talking!Through my wonderful book club, I was able to attend a book signing when his book came out. My wife was unable to attend,so I represented us both,and told Mr. B about the huge box of tear outs of his previous work that we have collected over the years and of how pleased we were that he finally has a book to do him justice. I told him that seeing a new room of his is like reading a new book of a favorite author:happy with the anticipation of the loved and familiar and excited about whatever new awaits us.He was totally warm and charming,and we lamented the demise of “pretty” in so much new design. Save us from minimalism and gray!
Pretty is back! What a treat for the eyes and a wonderful interview. Thank you so much Andrea.
I just adore everything by Mario Buatta! What a wonderful interview. I really love this series that you’re writing this month. It is so refreshing, after looking through magazines trying to find something pretty and finding nothing but a sea of beige, it is wonderful knowing there are still so many that love old school classically beautiful interiors. Thank you Andrea!
Thank you!!!
Whata great post !!! So many photos of beautiful rooms. I, too, lament the grey, the minimalist, the boring. It’s worth noting, however, that were I young again– and with the situation of frequent moving to climb the financial ladder facing today’s younger people–I, too, would want disposable, temporary furniture and no fancy draperies to move and to hope would fit my next windows.
That said, I’m now looking at “downsizing” and wondering who will want my mother’s dining room hutch, the waterfall desk, the poster bed, and the thick wool Bokhara that keeps my farm-y house floor comfy in winter. Not to mention 60 year old kitchen implements.
And the Remington typewriter.
Sad days, these, for the lovers of the older furniture who live far from a population center.
Now to get mom’s pink draperies out of their crate. One bedroom has her draperies, so can another!
Your comment sort of debunks a theory I’ve been tossing about: aesthetics between generations. I have many friends whose design styles align more with their grandmother than mother. I thought maybe those of us who grow up with antiques and chintz turn away from it, whereas those who grow up in minimalist/modern turn toward it like Mario. I suppose it’s as simple as we like what we like.
When my East Coast grandparents died, none of my cousins wanted their furnishings. It was a real shame because they had some fabulous retro chic pieces. Even though they did not want the antiques, we found young buyers who were tremendously appreciative. Of course, you prefer it stays in the family but there’s something special about redirecting it to individuals who truly appreciate quality and have pride of ownership.
As I stated in the article, my style is that which you, Mother, Miss Patricia and Mario lament. I believe it will evolve once I move into my forever home. Perhaps I will attempt to persuade Andrea to do an entry on my house so that I may offer some insight as to why Millennials often embrace minimalism. Our generation is inundated by technology that’s evolving at a frenetic pace. A monochrome/minimalist home offers a calm escape – welcome static after a dynamic day. There are other reasons such as the one you state, but I shan’t blabber more here!
I am so thrilled to find this blog! I started following Glampad on Instagram recently because I was so thrilled to find someone else who loves true, classically beautiful design! I can’t stand to have the same things as other people and abhor following the crowd! I’m glad that I’m not just out of touch because I’m determined to decorate the way I love! So happy to be here!!!