Robert Denning

Robert Denning (March 13, 1927 – August 26, 2005) was an American interior designer whose lush interpretations of French Victorian decor became an emblem of corporate raider tastes in the 1980s.

He became a testing subject for this homeopathic medical research and when his parents and younger brother moved to Florida, he stayed in New York City living with de Evia and his mother Miirrha Alhambra.

Clients beginning with Michel David-Weill;[6][7] the Ogden Phipps family,[7] for whom they did fifteen houses;[6] Henry Kravis,[8] whose home, and their decorating, was parodied in the 1990 movie "The Bonfire of the Vanities"[9] with Tom Hanks;[7] Charles and Jayne Wrightsman;[8] Henry Kissinger;[8] Diana Ross;[7] Oscar de la Renta[3] both in Manhattan[10] and Connecticut;[11] Beatriz and Antenor Patiño, the Bolivian tin magnate[7] and Jean Vanderbilt,[3] to name only a few, began to roll in.

They visually defined it, giving crisp money the appearance of provenance and what Denning called "a casual English attitude about grandeur.

"[3][17] Jewelry designer Kenneth Jay Lane developed a passion for art pieces from the Middle East which the firm was in the vanguard of introducing and has also used some of their lighting treatments.

[18] Denning designed Jason Epstein's SoHo home[19] from scratch in the shell of the building that housed the first consolidated New York police department.

Taking a lighter approach with more emphasis on effect and comfort than signed pieces of furniture, he used to laugh at how he would coach his early clients with decorating their children and grandchildren's homes.

[27] He was one of the decorators that contributed to the restoration of the 1932, 50 room mansion, of William Goadby Loew for the Smithers Alcoholism Treatment and Training Center on Manhattan's upper East side.

Robert Denning in photograph taken by Edgar de Evia in the 1950s.
East 73d Street
Robert Denning and Edgar de Evia in Robert Denning's apartment at the Lombardy Hotel , 2002.