Page 38 - Architectural Digest - USA (March 2020)

DISCOVERIES
THEN AND NOW
On Pointe
Stephen Sills hails the high-drama decor
of Rudolf Nureyev’s 1980s Paris flat
hen the September 1985 issue of
Architectural Digest landed in his hands,
Stephen Sills was spellbound. On the
cover, Rudolf Nureyev, the world’s most
W famous ballet dancer, lounged on the floor theatrical scale,” Sills says, noting that the dramatic environ-
of his Paris salon, wrapped in a scarlet
suzani. “He looked like a mad Russian Gypsy, and so did the
room,” the AD100 interior designer says, recalling being struck and-set-designer Ezio Frigerio drapes the dancer’s grave site,
by a Victorian terrestrial globe looming by the star’s side in
the flat, which had been decorated by Emilio Carcano. “I
thought if that ever came on the market, I’d get it, and I did,
eventually, at Christie’s Nureyev auction in 1995.” Centuries-
old Cordoba leather, fitted beneath a Gothic Revival mirrored
cornice, climbed the walls—a fragrant, shimmering back-
ground for what Sills describes as “ginormous sofas” clad in
Genoese velvet and striped with golden passementerie.
36 ARCHDIGEST.COM
RUDOLF
NUREYEV’S PARIS
SALON, WITH
LEATHER-CLAD
WALLS AND
VELVET SOFAS,
APPEARED ON THE
COVER OF AD’S
SEPTEMBER 1985
ISSUE (INSET).
Kilims flowed across parquet de Versailles; candles forested
Polish brass chandeliers; and paintings of muscle-bound
nudes accented the salon and neighboring rooms. “Some of
the greatest interiors are stage sets, and that room was at a
ments that cradled Nureyev onstage and off- followed him
to eternity: A billowing kilim made of mosaics by costume-
in a Paris suburb. “My own house is a kind of stage set for me,”
Sills continues. Like Nureyev, he adds, “I don’t give a damn
about living in it. Clients require comfort, but I don’t; I just 1. DERRY MOORE; 2. GABRIELLE PILOTTI LANGDON
care what it looks like.” —MITCHELL OWENS
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