Stéphane Boudin

The Dining Room at Leeds Castle, designed by Boudin for Lady Olive Baillie c. 1935.

Stéphane Boudin (1888–1967) was a French interior designer and a president of Maison Jansen, the influential Paris-based interior decorating firm.

Boudin is best known for being asked by U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to join American antiques expert Henry Francis du Pont of the Winterthur Museum and interior designer Sister Parish in the renovation and restoration of the White House from 1961 to 1963. Impressing the first lady with his initial work in the Red and Blue rooms Mrs. Kennedy gave him increasing control of the redecoration project to the consternation of du Pont and Parish.

Jansen is known for designing interiors for Elsie de Wolfe, the royal families of Belgium and Iran, the German Reichsbank during the period of National Socialism, and Leeds Castle in Kent for its last owner, Lady Olive Baillie. He also decorated Les Ormes, the Washington, D.C. home of Perle Mesta, the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, and her sister, Marguerite Tyson; the house and its furnishings eventually were purchased by Lyndon Johnson. The Johnsons hired Genevieve Hendricks to integrate a touch of Texas into the Boudin decor because, as Time quoted Johnson as saying, "Every time somebody calls it a château, I lose 50,000 votes back in Texas."

References

• Abbott, James A. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. ISBN 0-9646659-0-5.
• Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. ISBN 0-442-02532-7.
• Abbott, James A. Jansen. Acanthus Press: 2006. ISBN 0-926494-33-3.
• Hampton, Mark. Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century. Doubleday: 1992. ISBN 0-385--26362-9.
• 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