A sparsely furnished environment of vaporous colors pale blues, smoky lilacs, grayed whites—it is one of the most captivating private interiors in the city, home to one of America’s most intelligent and stylish women and her distinguished husband. The atmosphere, one fellow admirer declared, is like living in a cloud (I wish I’d thought of that). The object that held my eye was unexpectedly humble, positioned in a light-filled library alongside a bookcase filled with vellum-covered scrapbooks: a simple wood step stool, the kind of short ladder that costs around $25 in a neighborhood hardware store. Its unfinished pine frame and silvery metal fittings, however, had been thoroughly sponged with biscuit-color paint to blend with the walls and the bookcases.
