Jacopo Etro’s summer retreat in Puglia, Italy, stands as an ode to the collector’s impulse: the thrill of discovery, a reverence for decay, and the restless eye that turns a house into a captivating tale.

Alice F. Mason, the pearl-wearing doyenne of Manhattan real-estate agents, who entertained President Jimmy Carter and a cavalcade of high achievers at bi-monthly black-tie dinner parties on the Upper East Side, had a secret she guarded assiduously for nearly half a century.

‘It’s a jewel box’, Muriel Brandolini says of the deluxe three-bedroom guest house she designed for an American client in Southampton, Long Island. The half-French, half-Vietnamese designer, known for her haute-bohemian panache

The Hotel Chelsea, a red-brick twelve-story Victorian behemoth with florid cast-iron balconies on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, was the tallest building in New York when it opened in 1884. By the 1950s it had accrued notoriety as a shabby

When Mark Ronson bought a grandly scaled Manhattan townhouse with five bedrooms a little more than two years ago, he was 44, newly single, and eager to fall in love and multiply. ‘Start as you mean to go on’, he says, wryly.

La Maison Guerlain, the ornately gilded Art Nouveau perfumery at 68 Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, is redolent of grand luxe. But this week customers could be excused if they perceived a bit of stench as they perused the store’s scented gloves—

When Mario Buatta drew his last breath at 9:12 p.m. on Oct. 15 at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the celebrated interior designer, 82, known for his exuberantly colorful work, riotous persona and matching sobriquet, the Prince of Chintz, seemed at peace. 

CENTRAL PARK WEST, curiously, has become Manhattan’s new gold coast. Prices for luxury apartments along the western avenue—from Donald Trump’s flashy new condominium at Columbus Circle to the dignified Beresford at 81st Street and beyond—

One half of Jesus’ hairdo fell off this morning— I heard a bang,” Tim Knox says, peering at an 18th-century painted terracotta head of Christ that sits on a side table in the drawing room, awaiting repair.

Working with Mario is always a great adventure," says longtime Manhattan society figure Patricia Altschul, fuchsia-caftaned and lounging on a pale-blue-checked bergère in the double drawing room of her new home in Charleston,

"I'm impressed Al has the courage to show his face," says a wealthy Fifth Avenue collector, glancing in awe at A. Alfred Taubman, the embattled former Sotheby's chairman. "In his position, I'd be home, not answering the phone."

"I know we're not supposed to curtsey in America," says Nan Kempner, who nevertheless sank to the floor amid the frenzied throng of paying socialites as Diana, Princess of Wales swept into Christie's on Park Avenue

Camp is suddenly all the rage. 💥 As the topic of the Metropolitan Museum’s ingenious new exhibition at the Costume Institute, "Camp: Notes on Fashion"—a witty nod to Susan Sontag’s

THE PEARL: Having bounced between three continents (and Elizabeth Taylor) over the last five centuries, La Peregrina may be the most storied pearl in the world. An eyewitness history by Christopher Mason.

WHAT is the latest status symbol of the ultra rich? A spectacular residence they purchase for millions, reconfigure with the world's leading architects and interior designers for even more millions, then elect not to live in.

THE vast dining table in Brooke Astor's Park Avenue duplex was covered with seating charts on a crisp spring morning in 1987 as George Trescher, Mrs. Astor and I mused over the placement of some 400 guests for a gala dinner

EVEN as the real estate market cools, the contemporary art market is at fever pitch, as evidenced by the record-breaking total of $157.4 million brought in by Christie's sale of post-war and contemporary works on Tuesday. 

'MANY of the artists I have dealt with on this house have been very, very difficult to work with, but not Julian,'' said Gianni Versace, trying to coax a smile from the unyielding lips of Julian Schnabel, the plate-smashing painter and film maker known for his perpetual scowl.

Clutching a cup of morning coffee, writer and art world raconteur John Richardson is padding around his 5,000-square-foot loft on lower Fifth Avenue, an enfilade of high-ceilinged, classically proportioned rooms redolent of haute bohemia.

CLIENTS willing to indulge the futuristic whims of architects are notoriously rare. But Winka Dubbeldam, a Dutch-born architect based in Manhattan, seems to have a knack for attracting patrons susceptible to her visual poetry and her sculptor's passion