Tasteful Friends: Interior Designer Tony Duquette

His design partner, Hutton Wilkinson, is fun-loving caftan wearer.

Liza was his goddaughter.

He was featured on the Christopher Lowell Show a few times. Remember THAT? They toured Dawnridge and the Malibu estate. Both amazing.

The Malibu estate burned to the ground in a wildfire. He constructed it out of architectural elements that once belonged to MGM--stuff MGM got rid of when they had that massive backlot sale--things the studio had collected from all over the world like Buddhist temples and even genuine European antiques. Because he'd worked there, they let him cart away whatever he wanted before the auction. He hire a fleet of moving trucks. He did maximalism better than anyone else. I have to say, I thought his "grotesqueries" were hilarious. Like a lot of successful gay men in his day, he had a very passive aggressive relationship with his straight clients, hence taxidermied animals in Louis Quatorze outfits made into lamps. But he also had a knack of making cheap things look beautiful. He would ask for the moon and stars when it came to budget, and when clients gave him a realistic budget, he still delivered.

And of course he was closeted which is a shame. Hutton Wilkerson was his "protege" and I believe is also hiding (as if) in a straight marriage. The whole thing gives me a Merv/Ryan Seacrest vibe. Oh, Duquette's studio was also fantastic.

I know Wilkerson is carrying on with Duquette's designs but the only designer today who seems to embody his spirit is Ken Fulk. (Openly gay, thank you very much). Fulk's style is much different but he definitely has Duqette's imagination, IMO.

Lord above, this guy could fit an entire home décor store into one room!

The structures he created with the odds and ends from MGM were amazing!

Structures from his ranch in Malibu. Click on the image to see the full photo; the best part is getting cut off there on the left.

That’s a very nice assessment of Tony, R3. It seems like he adored his wife, Elizabeth, though. I wonder what sort of arrangement they had. It’s interesting that Hutton followed in his footsteps in that regard.

I think it’s extraordinary how wonderfully he could mix high and low. Tony was certainly creative. When he couldn’t afford the tooled leather vallances he wanted for the windows, he whipped up some paper mâché, got some paint, and made his own. He often would go to the dollar store and come out with supplies to make something wonderful. Someone said he was the only person who could spend 999 dollars at the 99 cent store. I wonder if this was the influence from his early days staging a department store and doing set design. He certainly knew how to make things work!

I’ve never heard of Ken Fulk. Going to look him up now. Thanks R3!

Wow,

More is more.