"The Taste-Maker: Murray moss Takes His Store-Cum-Museum to L.A."
Cont. (Page 4 of 4)
Moss is hyper-sensitive to most physical environments. I recently joined Getchell and him in Miami for the Art Basel fair. We met at the super-slick Four Seasons Hotel, where they were staying. Walking through the lobby, we passed a seriously massive Botero sculpture. Moss visibly recoiled and said, "I hate Botero. When Franklin and I first walked in here, I saw that huge Botero man, and I said to Franklin, 'I don't think I can stay here.' Then we went up stairs to the sky lobby, and there was another Botero, a woman, even bigger, and in a special niche with lighting. I said, 'O.K., that is so horrible, we have to stay here.'"
Moss and Getchell recently moved apartments, from a Gramercy Park loft they occupied for 25 years, to a unit in the Olympic Tower, a 1970s-era glass slab skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. Halston once had his showroom in the same building. "I think that's why we moved there, because I have this thing for fashion--still," says Moss. These may or may not be temporary digs for Moss and Getchell. For now, the master plan, is to take over the apartment next door, and make a big place.
The current, smallish apartment floats high above the traffic of Fifth Avenue. Its living room is floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. There are views of the GE building to the west and the Seagram building to the east. Walls are white; the floors covered in spotless neutral gray wall-to-wall. Moss and Getchell's perfectly polished black Prada shoes do not touch the carpet; they are lined up on a black woven leather mat near the door.
The most important piece in the main room is a 1950s-era Gio Ponti wall unit made of wood with shelves of various sizes. It's a transplant from their old apartment. The rest of the room looks like a very tightly edited version of the Moss store: two Dieter Rams swivel arm chairs, and a Rams couch, all upholstered in black leather, a few glass tables by Monica Armani, and some monumental vases from the NAME OF COLLECTION TK, by Hella Jongerius, a Rotterdam-based designer and former member of the Droog design collective. The art on the walls are photographs by WHO TK, which rest on a little ledge, lit by NAME OF DESIGNER TK spots.
"In this building, we loved the hallways the most," says Moss. "They are absolutely outdated, 1970s Modern hallways with can lights, and electric green industrial carpeting that has been badly patched," says Getchell. It looks like Alitalia first class lounge at Malpensa airport in Milan. "I just love that," says Moss. "Now they are going to ruin it, because the co-op board hired a decorator from Greenwich," he adds. "We tried to get them to hire Francios de Menil [a Modern architect who specializes in pared down simplicity]," says Getchell. The kitchen of the apartment has never been used. "It was untouched by anyone who lived here before us, and we have not used it either," says Moss, who shows me the rather mod 1970s Thermador stove, complete with owner's manual inside the oven, sitting on the rack. "When we moved in I just assumed it did not work because it hadn't been turned on in 35 years. So, I went through hell finding the repair man to come and get it working again. He finally showed up, took everything apart, and told me, 'Hey this works fine. It's just never been turned on.' I just loved that. This whole building is rich South Americans who come here for a few weeks."
Despite the small size of the apartment, Moss claims he has never entered on part of it. The power room, near the entrance. "I have never been in there," he says, seemingly disavowing whatever a visitor may find inside. The only other things of note: The water faucet handles are Grandma'- bathroom-style, yellowing plastic. On the wall: A large, rather impressive early American painting. It is very outside the normal Moss aesthetic. It depicts two very contented-seeming, well-groomed boys.
*****
I meet Moss and Getchell for dinner at Centovini. Chandeliers from their own collection--including two Cigar lights by the Modern masters Massimo and Lella Vignelli, designed and produced circa 1955, and a light created by Venini circa 1957 for the Alitalia offices in New York--illuminate the restaurant. A series of large Fornasetti plates decorate one wall. Moss and Getchell seem distracted, and I ask them why.
"It's the chicken," says Moss.
"You didn't sell it after all?"
"It was stolen," says Getchell.
"Someone took a 22-inch-high, 30-pound white chicken out of our store in broad daylight," says Moss.
For some reason, the store's security system failed just as someone with a discerning eye for porcelain--and, the owners think, a baby carriage--pulled off the Meissen heist of the decade.
"You can rest assured that we have beefed up our security to the point where now it will be much more difficult for someone to steal a statue the size of an Escalade," says Getchell.
MT