Stéphane Boudin (28 October 1888 – 18 October 1967) was a French interior designer and a president of

Maison Jansen Maison Jansen (; en, House of Jansen) was a Paris-based interior decoration office founded in 1880 by Dutch-born Jean-Henri Jansen. Jansen is considered the first truly global design firm, serving clients in Europe, Latin America, North America a ...

, the influential Paris-based interior decorating firm. Boudin is best known for being asked by U.S. First Lady

Jacqueline Kennedy Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A p ...

to join American antiques expert

Henry Francis du Pont Henry Francis du Pont (May 27, 1880 – April 11, 1969) was an American horticulturist, collector of early American furniture and decorative arts, breeder of Holstein Friesian cattle, and scion of the powerful du Pont family. Converted into ...

of the

Winterthur Museum Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Pronounced “winter-tour," Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The museum and estate were the home o ...

and interior designer

Sister Parish Sister Parish (born Dorothy May Kinnicutt; July 15, 1910 – September 8, 1994) was an American interior decorator and socialite. She was the first practitioner brought in to decorate the Kennedy White House, a position soon entrusted to French i ...

in the renovation and restoration of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

from 1961 to 1963. After Boudin impressed the first lady with his initial work in the Red and

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

rooms, Mrs. Kennedy gave him increasing control of the redecoration project, to the consternation of du Pont and Parish. Leeds castle room

Jansen is known for designing interiors for Elsie de Wolfe, Henry Channon, the royal families of

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, the German

Reichsbank The ''Reichsbank'' (; 'Bank of the Reich, Bank of the Realm') was the central bank of the German Reich from 1876 until 1945. History until 1933 The Reichsbank was founded on 1 January 1876, shortly after the establishment of the German Empi ...

during the period of National Socialism, and

Leeds Castle Leeds Castle is a castle in Kent, England, southeast of Maidstone. It is built on islands in a lake formed by the River Len to the east of the village of Leeds. A castle has existed on the site since 857. In the 13th century, it came into th ...

in Kent for its last owner,

Olive, Lady Baillie Olive, Lady Baillie (24 September 1899 – 9 September 1974) was an Anglo-American heiress, landowner and hostess. She is best known as the owner of Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, Kent, England. On her death the castle was bequeathed to a charit ...

. Boudin also decorated Les Ormes, the Washington, D.C. home of

Perle Mesta Perle Reid Mesta (born Pearl Skirvin; October 12, 1889March 16, 1975) was an American socialite, political hostess, and United States ambassador to Luxembourg (1949–53). Mesta was known for her lavish parties for Washington, D.C., society. At ...

, the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, and her sister, Marguerite Tyson; the house and its furnishings eventually were purchased by

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

. The Johnsons hired Genevieve Hendricks to integrate a touch of Texas into the Boudin decor because, as ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' quoted Johnson as saying, "Every time somebody calls it a ''

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. No ...

'', I lose 50,000 votes back in Texas."

References

* Abbott, James Archer. ''Jansen Furniture.'' Acanathus Press: 2007. . * Abbott, James Archer. ''Jansen.'' Acanthus Press: 2006. . * Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. ''Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration.'' Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. . * Abbott, James A. ''A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin.'' Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. . * Hampton, Mark. ''Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century.'' Doubleday: 1992. . * West, J.B. with Mary Lynn Kotz. ''Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies''. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan: 1973. SBN 698-10546-X.
"Ormes and the Man"
''Time'' magazine, November 17, 1961 {{DEFAULTSORT:Boudin, Stephane French interior designers 1888 births 1967 deaths French designers