relatively scarce items are relegated to a sort of aesthetic
purgatory. This tendency seems to be in tandem with an
aesthetic viewpoint that also espouses an aesthetic of
the good life as ruled by rooms purposely void of life���s
souvenirs or by rooms containing narrowly focused
aggregations.
Some years ago, I visited the apartment of a Park Avenue
worthy who had recently departed this world. Notable
were the excessive number of custom-crafted Parisian
shoes. Equally notable was the absence of hiking boots,
Topsiders, after-ski boots, dancing shoes, sneakers or any
shoe denoting activities beyond a lunching or shopping
assignation. The shoes were in perfect condition, in order
by hue; they seemed a perfect memorial to a life tethered.
There was no signal of life beyond a narrowly focused
perimeter.
In contrast, close examination of the estates of Jackie
Kennedy, the Jock Whitneys, Joan Payson, and Dorothy
���Sister��� Parish provide us with diverse objects reflecting
deep engagement in a plethora of life���s rewarding activities
I remember visiting Jock Whitney���s house and his sister,
Joan Payson���s house, both at Greentree, in Manhasset,
New York, in the sixties and seventies and thinking how
remarkably broad their intellectual, artistic, design and
collecting acumen was. Jock Whitney had died some
years before: the house seemed an ongoing testament
to a man equally at home on the board of a newspaper,
a polo pony, engaged in politics or collecting. From small
HYLAND
