Who

An architect and interior designer, Despont decorates houses for corporate barons, billionaires and fashion tycoons, like Bill Gates and Calvin Klein.

Backstory

The son of an architect, Despont was born in France and studied at the acclaimed Beaux-Arts in Paris, before moving to the U.S. to pick up a master's degree in urban planning at Harvard. In 1976, he joined Lord Llewelyn-Davies's famed design firm, first working at its Tehran branch and then transferring to the New York office. One of his colleagues in New York, Marietta Tree, ended up providing the slick Frenchman entrée to exclusive social circles, and he soon met a handful of high-profile figures who would become clients, including John and Susan Gutfreund, Jayne Wrightsman, Oscar and Annette de la Renta, and (the now disgraced) media mogul Conrad Black. Today his firm Thierry W Despont, Ltd. continues to carry out projects for its extremely well-heeled clientele all around the world.

Of note

Despont's particularly popular with the fashion mogul set. He's designed residences for Ralph Lauren, Limited CEO Les Wexner, Calvin Klein, Hubert de Givenchy, and Millard Drexler, the former CEO of the Gap. Nerds seem to like him, too. Most famously, he appointed the insides of Bill Gates' sprawling estate in Washington State, which has been dubbed "Xanadu 2.0." Despont has done work on the commercial front, too. He worked on the renovation of the storied London hotel Claridge's. and Vikram Chatwal recently tapped him to design a hotel called the Lamb's Club on West 44th Street, which is expected to open in late 2008.

Drama

Despont is well-versed in on-the-job acrimony. In December 2006, a Canadian businessman named George Eaton sued him over a home he designed in Ontario, complaining that the house took seven years to build, cost 10 times the initial estimate, and made him and his family sick on account of the toxic mold and E. coli-contaminated water. In the mid-'90s, another dramatic dispute occurred when the board of the Getty Museum brought in Despont to assist in the design of the museum—a job that had already been handed to starchitect Richard Meier—and Despont and Meier ended up crossing swords over the color of the walls in the museum's painting galleries. Meier recounts the beef in his book Building the Getty.

Personal

The divorced Despont has two grown daughters, Catherine and Louise. He lives in Tribeca and owns a residence in France.

No joke

Although Despont's full name is Thierry Guy Despont, he goes by Thierry W Despont with clients. Why? He says he likes the "symmetry" that the "W" adds to his name.