Designer: Dorothy May "Sister" Parish, 1910 - 1994
From: Morristown, New Jersey
The mother of American country style, Sister Parish was a decorator and socialite who combined classic European furniture with a homey, comfortable feel, so that spaces had continuity and character. A lover of trimmings and chintz, her spaces had personality, yet many of her rooms are quite timeless.
Facts:
• She started her interior decorating business four years after her stockbroker father and husband lost fortunes in 1929.
• She was cousins with another influential decorator, Dorothy Draper.
• She hired Albert Hadley in 1962, forming Parish-Hadley Associates.
• She decorated the Kennedy White House, as well as homes for the Astors, Whitneys, Rockefellers, and Gettys.
• She would push a tea cart around a client's home, filling it up with things she deemed unnecessary, before beginning.
Quote: Some think a decorator should change a house. I try to give permanence to a house, to bring out the experiences, the memories, the feelings that make it a home.
Known for: Chintz, heirloom hand-me-downs, quilts, baskets
Representative Rooms Shown Above: (left to right)
1) Yellow Oval Room, 1960, via Wikimedia Commons
2) Sister Parish and her dogs, via Architectural Digest
3) Sister's New York living room, via Sister Parish Design
4) Sister's Maine living room, via Architectural Digest
5) Parish-Hadley project, 1970s, via Veranda/John About Town
Parish On the Web:
• Wikipedia
• Architectural Digest
• Sister Parish Design
• The New York Times
(Images: as credited above)
Before & After: From Ceiling Space to Playing Space
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
White Enamel Flatwa...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
I was looking at the picture from the 1970's...I tell you...it looks like a home of today. She was very ahead of the curve!
She had a good eye for rugs. And for the flow of a room.
Wendy, I was thinking that the third room looked very current.
She had a love of the arm chair.
I'll bet most of us didn't expect to see the black (or very dark blue or brown) walls she used in her own living room as she is most identified with brighter colors. Despite the surprise, I think the room looks contemporary and livable...homey in the way she most aspired to achieve for others. I imagine she could only do it for herself, since in her time homeowners would have strenuously objected to walls that dark, just think what they missed.
The Vendome Press has just re-issued a new edition of a long out-of-print biography of Sister Parish called "Sister Parish: The Life of the Legendary American Interior Designer," written by Apple Parish Bartlett (Sister's daughter) and Susan Bartlett Crater (Sister's granddaughter). The book offers a fantastic overview of Sister's life and includes Sister's own recollections along with those of other designers and Sister's clients. Bunny Williams wrote an appreciation which appears in the front of the book.