May is for horses (and a stable of great design books).
Jared Paul Stern
April 21, 2008
Walking into Ralph Lauren’s massive, incomparably opulent Polo flagship on Madison Avenue is like time-traveling back to the last gasp of the Gilded Age, a Gatsby-esque glimpse into how the other half died. The Rhinelander Mansion, as it’s properly called, has not been (as many suppose) preserved in aspic from the Vanderbilt Era. In fact, the place was basically gutted when Ralph bought it; interior designer Naomi Leff did the rest, articulating Lauren’s vision so magnificently that he barely blinked at the multimillion-dollar tab. That’s just one of the many projects picturesquely presented in Naomi Leff (Monacelli Press, $60) by Kimberly Williams, the first of the decorous design-oriented offerings this month.
