{"id":249317,"date":"2026-05-31T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T09:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/249317\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T09:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T09:00:30","slug":"where-the-guests-sing-for-their-supper-in-gramercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/249317\/","title":{"rendered":"Where the Guests Sing For Their Supper in Gramercy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Great Rooms<\/a><\/p>\n

\n A visual diary by Design Editor Wendy Goodman.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Living Room The portrait above the desk is by Alexandra Cushing Howard\u2019s grandfather Howard Gardiner Cushing of her grandmother Ethel. The work in the far-right corner, A Young Girl From Taiwan, is by her aunt Lily Cushing. The Knole sofa is from the estate of Joan Whitney Payson. The bamboo armchairs are from Secondhand Rose in New York.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson\n <\/p>\n

Alexandra Cushing Howard and Philip \u00adHoward have been holding musical salons in the double-cube \u00adliving room of their home in Gramercy Park for over 40 years.<\/p>\n

The gatherings began sometime after the couple, who have raised four children since marrying in 1972, bought the three-bedroom apartment in the early 1980s. At a friend\u2019s house party, Philip and the playwright John Guare, competing over who could remember more lyrics to an obscure Cole Porter song, serenaded the crowd. The tradition carried over to Gramercy, where the other fixture is chicken potpie on the menu.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come. They have dinner and take turns performing,\u201d says Philip. \u201cIt could be a singer from the Met or a 9-year-old from downstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music, it turns out, is in the 1909 building\u2019s bones. Richard Watson Gilder, a poet and the editor of The Century, which was founded in the late 19th century, commissioned architect Herbert Lucas to design living quarters for him and five of his friends, all artists. Among them was the comic-opera singer Francis Wilson, the original of two previous owners of the Howards\u2019 apartment. Their immediate predecessor left behind a grand piano.<\/p>\n

The couple are members of distinguished families with deep American roots. He is a lawyer, author, and distant relative of Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and she is an architectural historian whose grandfather was the American impressionist Howard Gardiner Cushing. They moved in with little furniture; for a while, they propped up a door on sawhorses to use as a table.<\/p>\n

With the architect Richard Nash Gould, the Howards renovated the kitchen and created an enfilade entrance hall leading to the living room. A docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 25 years, Alexandra lined the walls with the work of her grandfather, which she has been cataloguing for decades, as well as paintings by her aunt Lily, whose watercolors are in the collections of the Whitney and the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n

Her sister Justine Cushing, an interior designer who worked with Sister Parish, has touched up the space over the years while adhering to the muted colors of the original palette. \u201cJustine has redecorated the apartment several times, as everything has been worn out by the children and the festivities,\u201d says Alexandra.<\/p>\n

Not that the evenings ever get too raucous with Philip as the master of ceremonies. He runs a tight ship for the up to 40 guests who attend their dinner parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rule is that you must be quiet \u00adduring the sets. No one can talk. We are \u00adtaking the performances seriously. There\u2019s integrity,\u201d he says. \u201cEven people who can\u2019t sing find a way to style a song.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Sitting Area The paintings, from left, The Harbor at Majorca, circa 1955, and Audubon Park New Orleans, circa 1958, are by Lily Cushing. The Knole sofa belonged to Alexandra\u2019s grandfather and was reupholstered by Rosenfeld Interiors<\/a> with Brunschwig & Fils fabric.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Dining Room The table is from Isabel O\u2019Neil Studio. The chairs were upholstered in Brunschwig & Fils by Rosenfeld Interiors.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Screen The painted panel of architectural forms is by Parker Zaner Bloser, a family friend. Above it is a 1916 study by Gardiner Cushing for a mural titled Royaume Sous Marin intended for the indoor swimming pool at the 50 East 70th Street mansion of the early-20th-century banker George Blumenthal.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Main Bedroom The paintings above the mantel are by Gardiner Cushing. The mirror is from his 1867 house in Newport. The curtains are by Alexandra\u2019s sister Justine and Robert Rosenfeld of Rosenfeld Interiors<\/a>.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Entrance Hall The room was opened up by architect Richard Nash Gould, who was hired by Cushing Howard and her husband Philip to renovate the apartment. \u201cHe had the idea of changing the circulation and made the hallway into a telescope,\u201d Philip Howard says.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Mural Alexandra before one of two reproductions of the 1911 Gardiner Cushing stairway mural commissioned by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney for her Old Westbury Studio.
\n Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Portrait Gardiner Cushing\u2019s mural included this work, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in a Bakst Costume With Fleurs de Mal, from 1911-12.\u00a0
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subjects\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n A portrait of Gardiner Cushing.
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subjects\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Gardiner Cushing in his studio in 1915.
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subjects\n <\/p>\n

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