 |
| Some
of Thomas Jayne's society clients would probably
describe his decorating as divine, and they'd
be right on the money about his last job. Mr.
Jayne, a New York decorator who has worked in
more than a few of the major apartment buildings
in the city, from the Dakota to River House, is
completing the refurbishment of the rectory at
the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, off Times Square,
Mr. Jayne is a parishioner. The Rev. Stephen Gerth,
St. Mary's rector, after arriving in |
|
|
in
January last year, invited Mr. Jayne to consider the
project over cocktails at the rectory. "It was
on my mind that it was time for painting, and refinishing
the floors," said Father Gerth, a gregarious
Virginian who had never worked with a decorator. Like
most first-time clients, he was thinking small when
he started, "One of the ways we serve our community
is with the ministry of hospitality," he said.
"And you can't have that without the environment
for it."
---The church, built
in 1895 at 145 West 46th Street, had been redecorated
in 1997 in the French Gothic style by the previous
rector, |
|
the
Rev. Edgar Wells. The adjoining rectory, a clergy residence
as well as a place to receive both the local parish
and church dignitaries, was not down-at-heel, but it
was socially disadvantaged by a certain cosmetic neglect.
"It wasn't in 'receiving order,' as my grandmother
used to say," Mr. Jayne said last week,
as his drapery makers from Dallas finger
pressed the pleats into place on the parlor's new batiste
curtains behind him, in preparation for the redecorated
rectory's first reception, to be held that night. A
fire-red parking sign on a garage opposite the rectory
flashed in the wooden shuttered bay window like a warning
about the ways of the flesh.
|
