Even the Best Make Mistakes - Albert Hadley

Very few admit it. Albert Hadley is one of the few who very freely admits it when he hasn't achieved his design goals. 


While being interviewed by Christopher Mason for the NY Times Hadley motioned to the concrete walls of his own Upper East Side apartment and commented:

One of the first projects Hadley worked with Sister Parish on was for the Bronfman's. It was to be a true Sis Parish design with lots of Chintz until, that is, the Bronfmans vacationed in Mexico. They sent a telegram to the Parish-Hadley firm with the message: "Stop all work. We want a floating apartment." Now this apartment was at 740 Park Avenue:

Source: ny.curbed.com via Dane on Pinterest

It wasn't working, until Parish sourced eighteenth century furniture for the space: 

“The chairs became like sculptures, and it was fantastic. That was a big turning point in Sis’s thought process. It was a challenge. I could never have done what I did without Sis. And she couldn’t have done what she did without me.”

Another project that had a mis-step Hadley recalls with humour was at another Park Avenue apartment. The drawing room had a Regence chandelier with real candles. At a glamorous party thrown to 'inagurate' the room:

“the air-conditioning was going full blast and the candles spilled all over the guests,” Hadley recalls, “and that was the end of that.”

Source: nymag.com via Dane on Pinterest

I've made mistakes myself. The worst to date which Steve will never let me live down was a chair rail I painted in an old apartment. The walls where painted eggplant when I moved in and the chair rail was a dull creamy colour. I wanted colour! I loved lime green with eggplant so I went out and got a can of what I thought would bring a hit of colour to the space. 

Now, lime green is much like yellow when you paint it on the walls:  it is amplified 100 times and I was mortified. My hit of lime turned out to be  neon bright. I know now what I did wrong...but I had no idea at the time what was wrong with the colour I'd chosen.  

What is your worst design mistake?