A Glimpse of a Mayor’s Baronial Side, at Home
He has been known to serve tuna on crackers during cocktail hour. He prefers diners to power-breakfast spots like the Regency. His sartorial style remains buttoned down, with a salmon-color crew neck and matching socks about as gaudy as it gets.
But (RINO) Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York, is certainly no everyman, jetting around the world in his own private plane and giving away hundreds of millions in charity. And when it comes to real estate, his tastes run to the positively baronial, especially with two of his properties — a town house on East 79th Street and one in Cadogan Square in London — and, perhaps soon, a $20 million Georgian mansion in Southampton, a 35-acre estate known as Ballyshear.
Throughout his tenure, the mayor has taken pains to protect his private life, refusing to divulge his weekend whereabouts, blocking aviation Web sites from tracking the movements of his private planes and swearing reporters to secrecy before granting access to his homes. Yet examples of the grandeur in which he lives had, until Monday, been in plain sight on the Web site of his longtime decorator, Jamie Drake, who is known for exuberance and has overseen rooms for Madonna as well as restorations at Gracie Mansion and City Hall.
The photographs represent a strikingly public display of his most intimate spaces: one image captures his workout room, another shows a brown commode with a pink orchid nearby.
Labeled only “Townhouse, NYC,” and “Townhouse, London,” without naming their owner, the images offer a virtual tour of two of Mr. Bloomberg’s residences, all done up with important art and expensive antiques in the English Regency style.
“It’s certainly not a budget-deficit look,” said Marian McEvoy, an author and former editor in chief of House Beautiful and Elle Décor. “This is not somebody who is interested in appearing less successful than he is, and rightly so. He appreciates, obviously, fine furniture and good art.”
