Extravagant Interiors
In addition to designing furniture for residences in Los Angeles and around the country, Morris enjoyed creating pieces for high-roller suites in Las Vegas, Nevada where her opulent style was a perfect match. Her interiors for the Imperial Suite at the International Hotel built by mega-developer Kirk Kerkorian cost more than $200,000 to furnish, a handsome sum for 1970. A columnist reported in the Chicago Tribune that helicopters were needed to airlift Morris' massively-scaled furniture through the penthouse windows. "She's tops in this town," said writer Norma Lee Browning about Morris. The first occupant of this 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) suite was Frank Sinatra, followed by Jackie and Aristotle Onassis for whom the space was originally designed. Morris always wondered what the former First Lady and the Greek shipping tycoon thought of the fur rugs she used throughout. Morris also provided furnishings for Elvis Presley's 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) suite at the Las Vegas Hilton in the mid-1970s with its black carpeting and furniture upholstered in white and yellow silk. "We had to redo his sofas twice a year," Morris told the Houston Chronicle. "He didn't care if he damaged the room, but he didn't want anybody else hurting things. And there were always white and yellow orchids."
Such was Morris' reputation for producing lavish and expensive beds that People magazine ran a feature story on her in 1978, noting such clients as Gladys Knight, Allan Carr, Cher and even Who drummer Keith Moon (for whom Morris outfitted a Malibu, California beach house). "I knew I had to make something that no one else could build cheaper," said Morris about her beds. "In Vegas, I've done beds in gold with gold inlays." Among the interiors and furnishings Morris created for film producer Allan Carr (Grease; Grease 2) was a glittering Egyptian-themed subterranean disco in his Beverly Hills house where actors John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John danced the night away for the paparazzi. Newton-John would later appear in a risque photo taken in the Phyllis Morris showroom by renowned photographer Helmut Newton who posed the singer topless for her 1985 "Soul Kiss" album artwork.
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Famous quotes containing the word extravagant:
“What is wanted—whether this is admitted or not—is nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicting all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)