de Wolfe, Elsie

orig. Ella Anderson de Wolfe

(born Dec. 20, 1865, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died July 12, 1950, Versailles, France) U.S. interior designer. A New York City socialite, she worked as a professional actress (1890–1904) before becoming a designer. Her design principles of simplicity, airiness, and visual unity helped transform and modernize heretofore dark, excessively ornamented Victorian interiors. She was the first female professional interior designer in the U.S. She spent much of her life in France as a noted hostess. During World War I she nursed soldiers; she received the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour for her relief work.

de Wolfe, Elsie (Lady Mendl) (1865–1950) interior decorator; born in New York City. She adapted the fashion sense of her acting years (1890–1904) to a career as America's first professional woman decorator. The 1898 transformation of her own house from gloomy, cluttered Victorianism to light, airy neoclassicism led to freelance work on New York's Colony Club, the Frick mansion, and houses of the wealthy. The restoration of her own Villa Trianon in France and her marriage to a British diplomat marked her 1920s and 1930s. World War II brought the Mendls to Los Angeles. A self-promoting eccentric, she claimed the introduction of blue-tinted hair, white upholstery, and leopard chintzes.