Mayfields: A Cradle in the History of Decorating Civilization

Mayfields, as it appears today.
Image via Elle Décor.

Sometimes there is a Design Vortex of sorts, where everything comes together with a new (or extensively renovated) house.  A great architect, a talented decorator, sensitive landscape designers, a good builder, and clients with the best taste (and some money), are all critical factors in a successful residence.  Such was the case for Mayfields, the Far Hills, New Jersey, childhood home of Dorothy May Kinnicutt, later to be better know as the legendary interior designer Sister Parish.

Mrs. Parish, with Albert Hadley, was my former employer, and Mayfields was often used as a reference for country house projects when I worked there as an architect in the 1980s, what we who worked there during that period call the Golden Age of Parish-Hadley.  Whether it was white-washing the fieldstone facing, providing the opportunity for three seating areas in the living room, or including a designated space for a visiting chauffeur to have lunch, the precedents at Mayfields were often recalled as a standard for comfortable country house living.

Mrs. Parish was quoted to say, "The most monumentous event of my life occurred in 1920, when I was 10 [sic].  It was the day we moved from Morristown to Mayfields, our new and wondrous stone house set on miles and miles of rolling country in Far Hills, New Jersey."  The architects were the New York City firm Cross & Cross with the landscape designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman and Marian Cruger Coffin.

"Mayfields was to be my parents' last and most important home, the ideal house for Daddy to express his love and knowledge of good furniture, for Mother to show her superb taste, for them to fulfill their fondest dreams of the most beautiful gardens, most fulfilling house, and the ideal setting for themselves and their children."

Mayfields, along with more country houses, city residences, and other buildings by Cross & Cross are featured in a new book NEW YORK TRANSFORMED: THE ARCHITECTURE OF CROSS & CROSS by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker.  Published by The Monacelli Press with a release date of March 18, 2014, it may be purchased at a discount rate here.  An earlier view of the house, when the stone was white washed, is shown, along with floor plans, and recent photos.  Those interested in the history of 20th century design will especially appreciate this monograph of an important architectural firm, not particularly known outside the greater New York City area.

The Travellers: Albert Hadley and a Sunburst Clock

Photo by Michael Mundy for Parish-Hadley.

In the Horse Country of New Jersey, the area around Peapack where the owners of the beautiful old estates still insist on keeping their roads unpaved, was a very stylish house with a great room, perhaps my favorite of the Parish-Hadley living rooms done before my time there. 

Photo by Michael Mundy for Parish-Hadley.

Ornamented with classical pilasters salvaged from a local historic building, the pale gray walls and the dark-stained wood floor provided a great background for the furnishings in essentially just three fabrics:  a chintz, a silk, and a cotton.  Decorated in 1969, the room remained virtually untouched until the owner decided to scale down to a smaller house forty years later.  Albert Hadley was called back to edit and arrange the furnishings, one of my favorite being the giltwood starburst clock.

Photo by Simon Watson for "House Beautiful".

In the new house, a very simple clapboard Late Georgian dating to 1820, the two front rooms were combined to create a large living room with a fireplace at each end.  The walls were painted off-white again, but this time the wood floor was painted pale gray, a custom mixed color Albert Hadley calls Fog, and again left bare.  The chintz-upholstered Odom chairs were placed flanking the fireplace; the chintz had been discontinued so it was not replaced.   Other seating was slipcovered or recovered, however, with the exception of the great pair of Regency benches which still remained without refreshment of the painted finish.  The wooden urn lamps that had white shades when placed in front of the wallpaper screens in the former house, now have black shades to stand out at the bare windows.


Photo by Simon Watson for "House Beautiful".

This room is an example of decorating small, spare and chic.  And it cannot be said often enough:  buy what you love and it can be used over and over again.
The 1969 decoration appeared in Parish-Hadley, Sixty Years of American Design with photos of this room by Michael Mundy, and the new house with re-used furnishings was featured in the July, 2009, issue of "House Beautiful" magazine with photos by Simon Watson.


The 1995 Christopher Petkanas book PARISH-HADLEY, SIXTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DESIGN is out of print, but used and collectible copies can be purchased through The Devoted Classicist Library in affiliation with Amazon by clicking here.