Cover or Aerin Lauder, "Living with Flowers," featuring antique Chinese wallpaper in 960 Fifth Avenue dining room — Aerin Lauder, “Living with Flowers”
Cover Photography: @thomasloof

Project Overview

Scenic Wallpaper restored this beautiful antique Chinese wallpaper in a dining room at 960th Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for Aerin Lauder. The 200+ year old wallpaper showed dirt and damage due to age, with two areas where vents were removed which required repair and patching with paper and artwork. Additionally, there was a large section of missing artwork that had previously been obscured by a large piece of furniture.

Historic Context: 960 Fifth Avenue

960 Fifth Avenue is a historic apartment building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 77th Street, overlooking Central Park. The 15-story building was finished in 1928 and was designed by Rosario Candela and Warren & Wetmore. Candela was a 1920’s architect celebrated for his exceptional apartment building designs in New York City and grand flowing layouts. His work came to define luxury living in Manhattan. The Museum of the City of New York recently held an exhibition on Candela and his works. Click here to see more about the exhibition, including a video featuring 960 Fifth Avenue and this apartment.

historic image of 960 Fifth Avenue — 960 Fifth Avenue

Warren & Wetmore was one of the most prominent architectural firms in America during the early 20th century, best known for designing Grand Central Terminal. Renowned interior decorator Dorothy Draper was also used as a consultant on the project.

Fully restored antique Chinese wallpaper in 960 Fifth Avenue dining room — After Restoration

The antique wallpaper was installed in the 1950’s, when new owner C. Douglas Dillon modernized the apartment, lowering the original ceiling height. The wallpaper, handpainted in the late 1700’s, was purchased as an antique and already approximately 150 years old. The paper retained its original pink background color, which was common for the time.

Dillon, a successful financier, was the ambassador to France under President Eisenhower before serving as Treasury Secretary in the Kennedy administration. Dillon owned the apartment until his death in 2003, and more than a decade later, the property hit the market for the first time in 70 years.

Restoration Process

 The apartment was purchased by Lauder, who restored the ceiling height and hired Scenic Wallpaper to carefully restore the antique wallpaper in place.

Antique handpainted Chinese wallpaper before restoration, 960 Fifth Avenue — Before Restoration and Artwork

Before starting the restoration, we cleaned the wallpaper in the entire room and secured loose spots, rips, and cracks.

Artwork Reconstruction and In-Painting

After cleaning, we inpainted areas that had faded or chipped, as well as the larger areas of artwork that needed to be completed.

The birds in the wallpaper were designed in pairs, which was common for the era.

Antique handpainted Chinese wallpaper showing pairs of birds — Pairs of birds on the original wallpaper

Antique handpainted Chinese wallpaper before restoration, showing missing artwork, 960 Fifth Avenue — Before Restoration and Artwork

The bottom half of one large panel had always been hidden behind a large piece of furniture and had no artwork on it. We were asked to fill in this area so that the wall would blend in with the rest of the room. This involved a lot of planning, and first we created a preliminary layout for the area using Photoshop. Our artist then filled the area with many different flowers, trees, birds, and butterflies to match the existing artwork, and aged the artwork to fit with the rest of the wallpaper.

Artistic in-painting filling missing artwork on antique Chinese wallpaper — Artwork in Progress

Artistic in-painting filling missing artwork on antique Chinese wallpaper, in progress — Artwork in Progress

Reconstructed flower and bird arrangements on restored Chinese wallpaper — Artwork in Progress

Antique handpainted Chinese wallpaper after restoration, 960 Fifth Avenue — After Restoration and Artwork

Architectural Repairs and In-painting

Two air vents near the ceiling were removed during renovations, and our team filled in the areas with cement board and sheet rock, carefully working to make sure the surface was flush with the surrounding walls. We fabricated the pink paper for those areas, recreating the same overlapped seams as the surrounding paper. Our artist then in-painted the sections to match the room. This also included covering some major leaks underneath the vents, and again mottling and aging the paper to blend with the existing artwork.

(See more examples of leak repairs and other restoration and cleaning processes here).

Repairs at vent openings with fabricated matching pink wallpaper — Covering previous vents

Before repairs at vent openings with fabricated matching pink wallpaper — Before Restoration and Artwork

After repairs at vent openings with fabricated matching pink wallpaper — After Restoration and Artwork

Before leak repairs at vent openings with fabricated matching pink wallpaper — Before Restoration and Artwork

After leak repairs at vent openings with fabricated matching pink wallpaper — After Restoration and Artwork

Other touch-ups were done around the rest of the room, including covering chips, fixing water damage and fading, adding strips above the windows, painting sensors, and covering a previous outlet.