Kips Bay Decorator Show House Opens April 17

Benefiting the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, the show house will remain open to the public through May 17.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 4/10/2009

 
The doublewide limestone mansion of Aby Rosen, located at 22 East 71st Street in Manhattan. Maya Romanoff's three-dimensional contribution to the project.

The Mets and Yankees are suiting up in new digs, the Tribeca Film Festival is gearing up downtown—sounds like a typical New York spring. But what’s needed to make the season complete is a much-coveted date on the design calendar, the April 17 opening of the 37th annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House.

An annual rite of passage for A-list designers, and an eagerly awaited event for their devotees, this year’s edition will makeover the doublewide limestone mansion of real estate tycoon and art patron Aby Rosen, located at 22 East 71st Street on the city's Upper East Side.

The official opening night gala is scheduled for April 16, but the festivities will kick-off two days earlier with a tribute to this year’s Design Icon, legendary designer Albert Hadley. The Interior Design Hall of Famer will be honored at the traditional black tie president's preview and benefit dinner on April 14. 

 
Maya Romanoff celebrates his company's 40th anniversary with a collaboration with Jo Lynn Alcorn admist the mansion's spiral staircase.

In a nod to the honoree, the Show House will feature designers who studied with Hadley, the creative force behind the homes of Brooke Astor, Babe Paley, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The list of participants includes several design legends in their own right, from Gloria Vanderbilt and Amy Lau to a trio of Interior Design Hall of Famers: Jamie Drake, Juan Montoya and Bunny Williams.

Lau's contribution will also recognize another luminary, Maya Romanoff, who is celebrating the 40th anniversary of his namesake wall covering company. Lau will collaborate with paper artist Jo Lynn Alcorn on an installation that will utilize Maya Romanoff products in a three-dimensional display that will transform the core of the mansion, a skylight-topped spiral staircase between the second and third floors.

Running through May 17, the event raises over $1 million annually for the Kips Bay Boys & Girl Club, a non-profit organization that provides after-school and enrichment programs for over 14,000 youths between the ages of 6 and 18 from ten locations in the Bronx. The Show House sees as many as 20,000 visitors during its annual four-week run and has raised more than $16 million since its inception in 1973.

Exterior image courtesy of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House. Maya Romanoff images courtesy of Maya Romanoff.