Who

The elder statesman of the interior design industry, octogenarian Albert Hadley may be America's oldest interior designer still practicing.

Backstory

A native of Nashville, Hadley moved to New York in 1949, earned a degree at Parsons, and landed a job at the prestigious interiors firm Macmillan. In 1960, famous designer Van Day Treux introduced him to decorator Sister Parish, and the two partnered to form their soon-to-be-legendary firm, Parish-Hadley Associates. One of their first projects involved designing the 740 Park apartment of Edgar Bronfman, who had recently married his (first) wife, Ann Loeb. But the project that put them on the map was their 1961 makeover of the White House, commissioned by Jackie O. The duo designed apartments and mansions for an all-star, socialite-studded clientele over the next three decades. Following Sister's death in 1994, Hadley drew the curtains on Parish-Hadley. After taking some time off, he founded Albert Hadley, Inc. in 1999.

Of note

Hadley's client list is a long one. Over the years, he's designed spaces for Oscar de la Renta and his wife Annette, Brooke Astor, Donna Hanover (he redid Gracie Mansion's dining room), Al and Tipper Gore, William S. Paley, John Hay Whitney, Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer, Happy Rockefeller, Time Inc.'s Henry Grunwald, and Connie Chung and Maury Povich—to name just a few. And many of the top interior designers working in New York today earned their stripes working for Hadley, including David Easton, Bunny Williams, Mariette Himes-Gomez, and Thom Filicia. (Real estate broker Edward Lee Cave also worked for Hadley during his brief career as a decorator.) Hadley still runs the firm that bears his name, although much of the day-to-day work falls on the shoulders of his associates.

Personal

Hadley, who can almost always be found wearing oversized rose-colored eyeglasses, keeps mum about his personal life. Even his 2005 biography didn't make a peep about any romances he's had. He lives on the Upper East Side.

True story

When the news broke that Hadley and Parish had been tapped to reupholster the White House, one confused newspaper ran the headline, "Nun to Decorate White House."