Nina Griscom’s Chic Manhattan Townhouse

Note: When I first posted this with photos I received a stern email from Conde Nast requesting removal of all photos, the head of my first born child, etc etc. I thought it was weird since I had carefully credited all photos, and, uh, photos from magazines are all over the place and then some, but I did. Soonafter I received another note from Conde Nast, this time from Peggy Russell herself, whom I consider a longtime cordial acquaintance, very nicely apologizing etc and clarifying their policy. Well by then I’d taken down the photos and I just haven’t gotten around to re-posting them… Maybe I will one a these days… but you can click on the links and see them all at AD’s site.

The February Architectural Digest has landed with a royal flourish, complete with a kilted Prince Charles at the door of Dumfries House on its cover. Brava Editor-in-Chief Margaret Russell! Peggy is as smart and stylish as they come, and AD is sailing with her at the helm.

Among HRH’s Scottish pile, an L.A. modern, a grand San Francisco, a Sao Paolo sumptuous, and a Steven Gambrel gem stands the Manhattan duplex of Nina Griscom and Leonel Piraino. And after that ridiculously flattering piece she wrote about our New Year’s Eve Party (New York Social Diary, January 10), it seems only fitting that we embarrass her in return. That, and the house is chic as all get-out. Be sure to click on the links in green type, above, to see the issue and the full story.

A former Ford model and television host, Nina looks about 22 in every picture I’ve ever seen of her, including those from when she was 15.

Her signature color scheme never fails: “cream of clams and shades of mouse,” a phrase she borrows from her longtime friend and inspiration, the late, great Bill Blass. Let it be said that she was an inspiration to him as well. But where Mr. Blass’ rooms were viscerally masculine, Nina’s are subtly sexy with her deft mix of texture, pattern, objects, art…and velvet. With glamour in her DNA, she has an impeccable and seasoned eye, refined through the lens of a well-traveled and well-lived life.