
"WHAT A DUMP…” deadpans a visitor upon entering the exquisite home of designer Marshall Watson
WHAT A D UM P…” deadpans a visitor
upon entering the exquisite home of
designer Marshall Watson and hus-
band Paul Sparks. Peals of laughter
erupt as said visitor knows that the pair,
with their theater and film backgrounds
(Watson was a regular character on As the
World Turns in the early 1980s; Sparks built a career as a documentary
and corporate producer), will ken the phrase first
uttered by Bette Davis’s disgruntled housewife
in Beyond the Forest and later seared into film
history by Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf ? Sparks and Watson’s impecca-
ble and stylish flat is anything but: It is a study in
traditional elegance and sophistication, informed
by history and wrapped in the ambience of sanc-
tuary. “I love the New York energy,” Watson says,
“but it’s go-go-go and sometimes fierce. We need
a gentler, more civilized life in our homes. We
need them to be havens.”
In a 1912 building on Manhattan’s Upper West
Side, the classic “Edwardian five” apartment
appealed for its ceiling height and light. “You
can fix everything but those,” says the designer,