Lauren Bacall's private world
Bacall was -- dare we say it? -- perhaps a bit of a pack rat. Click on any photo for a slideshow.
The late actress's apartment in the Dakota, a building on Manhattan's Upper West Side that's famous in its own right, hit the market in November, but the listing photos were taken after most of her personal items had been removed. Now those possessions are being auctioned off at Bonhams -- you can click here to watch live on March 31 and April 1 -- and the catalog gives an unprecedented look at her inner sanctum. (Large PDF download is available here.)
The auction includes artworks from around the world -- among them a number of pieces by renowned artists Robert Graham and Henry Moore --as well as furniture and other household items dating back centuries. There are even personal items like a bronze statue of her husband Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade; several of her director's chairs; and a "Cactus Flower" lamp commemorating her appearance in that Broadway play with a lampshade papered with reviews and Playbill.
Bacall herself told writer Robert Caille in the December 1978 issue of French Vogue:
"As anyone can see on entering my apartment, I am a collector of many things, for many years: pewter (plates, bowls, mugs, you name it), brass snuff boxes, match strikers, faience animals, needlepoint animals, ivory animals, bronze animals, boxes; all are antiques, all have lived through a lot, all make me feel warm. The place is cluttered, but it is personal, and in each room as you wander down the hall there is something else. (There are lots of books, too, with one on Henry Moore in each room.) Also pictures of my friends, my friends and my children, all important to me, and my dog; I am attached to it all."
The massive collection left almost no surface in her 4,000-square-foot apartment unadorned with African artifacts, glazed Victorian pitchers and the like.
As for the apartment itself, it's a three-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom home Bacall purchased in 1961—four years after beloved husband Humphrey Bogart died--and it's where she called home until her death last summer. (Click here or on a photo for a slideshow.)
The spacious apartment begins with an 18-foot foyer. Each of the major rooms—the library, great room and formal dining room—are connected by a 70-foot gallery. The apartment features five fireplaces, 13-foot ceilings, and six windows overlooking Central Park, including one off the library with a Juliet balcony.
While she has decorated it extensively, the rooms remained untouched—even photos of the apartment dating back to the 1970s are easy to match up. She didn't undertake any remodeling, renovating or major updating during her 53 years there. In August 2014, she died of a stroke in the apartment, a month shy of her 90th birthday.
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