Eerdmans calls the new volume a “Mario primer.” Drawing on his vast archives, including presentation boards and scrapbooks, Anatomy, as the name suggests, traces the design legend’s path from growing up on Staten Island (where a favored aunt was key to developing his eye) to dropping out of college to becoming one of the world’s most famous decorators.
Buatta reimagined Toad Hall’s formal entry foyer as a sitting room, “creating an inviting space that distracts the eye from the asymmetrical arrangement of passageways,” Eerdmans writes. “Mario purposely covered the room’s furniture in different textiles to disperse color and create the illusion that these pieces have been collected over time.” Here, Regency decor — the daybed, the curtains — mingle with less formal styles.
Eerdmans focuses on his tutelage under some of the 20th century’s design titans, many of whom employed Buatta before he became his own brand, Keith Irvine, Sister Parish and Albert Hadley among them. The influence of the houses created by John Beresford Fowler and Nancy Lancaster, of the British firm Colefax and Fowler, is deeply felt throughout Buatta’s work. The spaces created by these designers were prime exemplars of the English country house look — most notably, Lancaster’s Yellow Room in her home in London’s Mayfair. On this side of the pond, Buatta took the Colefax and Fowler approach and famously made it his own, becoming the Prince of Chintz, with a penchant for dog art. (The 2020 auction of items from his homes in Manhattan and Connecticut revealed a revival of interest in his aesthetic among a younger set.)
Left: The Toad Hall client, “who made few design requests,” Eerdmans writes, “asked Mario to find a place to use the floral chintz Hollyhock.” The designer deployed the fabric in the living room, which features several seating areas, on a corner banquette. Mounted above this are equestrian paintings and DOG ARt. Right: Although a confirmed traditionalist known for his devotion to English country house Style, Buatta designed his space for the 1977 Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York in a relatively contemporary vein, with off white walls and modern art. “Decades later,” Eerdmans reveals, “he confided that the room was a disappointment and recalled Babe Paley, considered a supreme arbiter of taste, walking through it unimpressed.” Photo courtesy the Estate of Mario Buatta
Eerdmans concludes her exploration of the designer with a section titled “Deconstructing Buatta Style,” complete with schematic diagrams unpacking how he arranged furniture to facilitate movement around a room
Buatta selected a variety of blue fabrics to unite an assembled suite of wicker seating on Toad Hall’s covered porch. “The use of a dhurrie rug on the veranda’s stone floor,” Eerdmans writes, “is unexpected and further enhances the atmosphere of the space as a proper room.”
The book’s final chapter, “Master Class,” takes a deep dive into some wonderful projects from Buatta’s last decade — ones that did not make it into the 2013 book — among them, a sumptuous apartment in Manhattan’s historic River House, where reflective pearlescent wallpaper adds to the glow of the entrance hall. Also included here is the Charleston home of socialite Patricia Altschul, who penned the book’s foreword. “I can’t tell you how much I miss him,” Altschul writes. Thanks to this book, his presence is felt again.
