Life & Work with Hutton Wilkinson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hutton Wilkinson.

Hi Hutton, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My father and grandfather were architects in Los Angeles since 1918. I always wanted to be an architect but when I was in 7th grade, I read an article in the Los Angeles Times, Home Magazine about Tony Duquette and his wife Elizabeth who lived in a silent film studio. From that moment on, I wanted to work with Tony Duquette, and I finally got my chance when I was 17 years old. I had an art teacher and we used to play Tony Duquette, “If you were Tony Duquette, how would you do this project?” She only played this game with me, not her other students. One day she put a note in my locker saying, “Tony Duquette is looking for volunteers to work on a museum exhibition.” I quit my job and went to work with Tony the next day. I worked with him for free as a volunteer for two years and continued on at $50.00 every two weeks for the next three years. That makes me 21 years old and not very bright. When he finally offered me $5.00 an hour, I told him, “I think I can do better on my own.” and started my own business as an interior decorator. Jimmy Carter was in the White House and we had 20% inflation and I was able to make a lot of money. It was at this time that Tony Duquette and I became investment partners purchasing office buildings, apartment houses and spec houses all of which we rented or flipped. As Duquette became older, he was offered a series of really great jobs which he didn’t want to take. I told him, “Take the jobs and I’ll do the work and we’ll split the profits 50/50. That is when we became business partners in the Tony Duquette Studios, Inc., the company which I own and run today.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
All businesses have their highs and lows. The business of interior design has changed tremendously since 1972. With the invention of the internet, everyone can buy everything wholesale but taste, and it seems that taste is something people aren’t willing to pay for anymore. In the old days, husbands would go to the country club and brag in the locker room, “My wife just paid our crazy decorator $900.00 for a throw pillow!” Now they go to the country club and brag in the locker room, “MY wife is so amazing, she just bought a $900.00 throw pillow on Etsy for $30.00. Fortunately for us at Tony Duquette, our patrons realize that ours is a luxury business. I walked into a meeting with my client in San Francisco. She was on the phone with a girlfriend. I heard her say, “I’ve got to hang up now, Hutton has just arrived.” Her friend told her before hanging up, “I could never afford him.” and my client responded, “Well, you get what you pay for.” before hanging up. At Tony Duquette, we also make one-of-a-kind pieces of fine jewelry in an 18k gold set with precious and semi-precious stones. Our original designs have also been licensed to Maitland-Smith, for furniture, Remains Lighting for lamps and fixtures, Jim Thompson Thai Silk for fabrics and wallpapers, Patterson Flynn Martin for carpeting Mottahedeh for porcelain and tabletop decorations and even a collection off evening slippers for Stubbs & Wooton.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We also design special events for clients from selecting the theme to selecting the entertainment, the decor and even the invitations. These have included extraordinary parties in Palm Beach, San Francisco, Dallas, New York, Paris, France and Venice Italy. In the New Year, I’ll be working in Boston, Palm Beach, Beverly Hills, and Bell Canyon, California, and Bangkok, Thailand.

I am excited about several new business ventures that have been proposed in the home furnishings category, as well as a proposed documentary on Tony Duquette which is of great interest to me.

I didn’t know I could read let alone write, but I have 11 published books, The first four, published by Abrams are about Tony Duquette and our work together. There is also a double boxed set of historic fiction published by Cecil Court Press, “The Walk To Elsie’s and The Walk From Elsie’s” about the first ten years of Tony Duquette’s career and the last ten years of Elsie de Wolfe’s life, Duquette and de Wolfe were together from 1940 to 1950. I have also published five Gaspar Brown Adventure books which chronicle the fictional life of a teenager living in Florida. I have written a total of nine of these adventures, the last four are yet to be published. I am currently working on a new tome about Los Angeles as I knew it in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I haven’t changed. I love parties. My parents entertained all the time and my older brothers and sisters would go to bed, but I would dress up and want to be with the adults. I wanted to see their clothes and their jewels, and I wanted to hear their stories. I love dressing up, home movies of Christmas morning show my brothers and sisters coming down the stairs in their pajamas to see what Santa had brought, and I’m following them down the stairs in a red flannel tailcoat with brass buttons like the ringmaster at the circus. My mother was a noble Spanish lady from South America who had come to Los Angeles with her family when she was six years old. My nanny was her nanny and she filled my head with the glories of South America and in particular, Bolivia.

My grandfather had been Secretary of State, Vice President and then President of Bolivia from 1934 to 1936. “If your grandfather were alive,” she would say, “You would have a pony,” or “you would have to dress for dinner,” or “You would be going to school in Europe.” Her name was Isabel and she was an Aymara Indian, living in our house in Hancock Park with two long braids poking out of each side of her Borsolino bowler hat wearing a fringed shawl and a thousand colored skirts. It is Isabel who we called “Chabe” who filled my head with illusions of grandeur, and I’m glad she did. I’m still dressing up, still entertaining formally at seated dinners from 30 to 80 friends, still eating off of 18th century dishes, (even our kitchen China is 18th century) and still wanting to dance to tunes by Cole Porter and Jerome Kern.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tonyduquette.com
• Instagram: @huttonwilkinson @tonyduquetteofficial