The Living Room Susan Forristal found the coffee table’s drum base at a fair in East Hampton. The clay pears are by Margaret Ponce Israel, who also did the clay bust above the bookshelves. The small painting in the center of the mantel is by Soames Bantry. The Indonesian painting on glass was found in Bali. The painting of Ned Rorem to the right is by Duncan Hannah. The photograph of pears is by Jean Pagliuso.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The decorator Susan Forristal lives in one of the six landmarked buildings on East 10th Street that were once part of Stuyvesant Farm. Her floor-through on the parlor level features some turn-of-the-past-century architectural details, to which she has added a pastiche of furniture and objects drawn from her former life as a model and gallerist.
The George Smith armchairs in the living room belonged to the English antiques dealer and designer Geoffrey Bennison. Forristal asked him to design the living room of her then-home on Central Park West with Lorne Michaels in the 1980s, around the same time that Bennison worked on Marie-Hélène and Baron Guy de Rothschild’s New York apartment.
“He was not only a wonderful friend, but I learned from Geoffrey,” Forristal says. “And then when I was still with Lorne, Geoffrey died.” At Bennison’s estate sale in 1985, Forristal bought an Oushak rug and a settee, which she used to furnish her own apartment in the East Village after she divorced Michaels. She discovered the building through the photographer Saul Leiter and the painter Soames Bantry, who had lived there since the 1950s.
Forristal arrived in New York in the late 1960s and became one of the top models of the era, alongside close friend Lauren Hutton. Growing up in Texas, Forristal had wanted to live in the city since she was 13. “I saw a picture of Jean Shrimpton in a Porsche convertible with a big sheepskin coat flung over the seat and thought, I want to do this. I wanted a big life,” she says.
After her divorce, Forristal pursued an acting career (on director Mike Nichols’s suggestion) and opened a small art gallery. In 2000, she set up a design practice; clients have included Bret Easton Ellis, Candace Bushnell, and Griffin Dunne. The apartment on East 10th was an early renovation project, restored with the designer Missy Nord Haggerty, who recovered walls, trim, and doors that over the years had accumulated “layers and layers of hospital-green paint.” Forristal filled it with keepsakes, such as a Salvador Dalí candlestick that was a wedding gift from Jack Nicholson and a photograph of Forristal and Hutton bathing with a bucket in Bora Bora.
That image was taken by Alan Kleinberg, Forristal’s boyfriend for most of the 1970s. His work is also immortalized via a handmade album of small prints, each taped onto the page by their late friend Marvin Israel. “It’s irreplaceable,” Forristal says. “It’s not only an art piece but a time capsule of a moment in New York City.”
The Dining Area The French doors open to a view of the communal garden. The Arts and Crafts chairs and wooden table were found in Amagansett. The settee belonged to decorator Geoffrey Bennison.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Daybed The trundle is from Pottery Barn. “It can sleep two people,” Forristal says. The vintage painting over the bed is from AERO.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Mementos The peonies still life is by Robert Kulicke. The oil painting of Hermes was found at a junk shop in Long Island. The framed nude is by Saul Leiter. The photograph of Lauren Hutton and Forristal in Bora Bora is by Alan Kleinberg. The framed tickets are from Woodstock. The Chinese pen-and-ink monkey drawing belonged to Kleinberg.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Office The photograph of Forristal was taken by Neal Barr.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Bedroom The handmade four-poster bed is from Martinique, found at a warehouse in Brooklyn. The painting on glass above the bed is Chinese, found in Bali.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Mantle The painting over the fireplace in the bedroom is by Soames Bantry.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Kitchen “The kaffir leaves were a gift by my boyfriend, Rory, because we spent so much time eating food with them when we were living in Bali,” says Forristal.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Notebook A photograph of Andy Warhol by Kleinberg in an album made by Marvin Israel over dinner. “He sat there and organized and designed this book with Alan’s photographs,” Forristal recalls. “It was mainly people from the late-’70s, early-’80s downtown glitterati.”
Photo: Annie Schlechter
Susan Forristal
Photo: Annie Schlechter
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