The Cecil Beaton Suite

As part of The Plaza’s rebirth as a Hilton hotel property, four celebrity suites were created, apartments named for (and, in some cases, designed by) luminaries of the time. The first to be recruited was British photographer Cecil Beaton, an old chum of Serge Obolensky, the mastermind behind the celebrity suites. As part of the agreement, Beaton was allowed to lease the apartment at half price whenever he visited New York.

A large suite, 249–251, was chosen and the redecoration completed in just two weeks at the end of 1945. Furnishing it had been simple enough, for Beaton selected much of the decor from a stock of old hotel furniture that had been banished to a subbasement storage room. The result was eclectic, to say the least: A bust of Racine rested beneath a modern lithograph, while rococo gilt-framed mirrors played off of turn-of-the-century moldings. Beaton remarked, “If you have one good thing in your room, it acts as ballast for the rest,” and in this case, the one good thing was a centrally placed coffee table, not rescued from subbasement storage but, instead, purchased specifically for the suite. The resulting stage-set feel (here) reflected Beaton’s latest enthusiasm, set design (among his projects at the time was the staging of the ballet Moths and the play Lady Windermere’s Fan).

Beaton used the suite as his New York base until the early 1950s, when Serge Obolensky decamped from The Plaza for a position at the Sherry-Netherland. Beaton soon followed, and later designed a suite in that hotel that also bore his name.