Sutton Place in the 1970s functioned as a center of elite Manhattan living, populated by Vanderbilts, social "Swans," actresses, architects, designers, and executives who wanted proximity to wealthy clients. Michael Wynn and Alicia Sandra Fox moved from an East 55th Street rental and purchased a 16th-floor penthouse with a 160-foot-long terrace—Penthouse C—after a broker's call. The apartment carried artistic pedigree, social cachet, and abundant style. Earlier residents included Sidmore Parnes, whose interiors favored European opulence with gold leaf and fabric-walled rooms, and Al Nevins, a hitmaking composer turned publisher who used the unit for lavish entertaining.
When Michael Wynn, the president of a men's fashion house, rented a place on East 55th Street with a terrace, his fiancée, Alicia Sandra Fox, couldn't help fantasizing as she looked out at the buildings around her. Maybe after the wedding, they could move into a penthouse. She was ambitious by nature, a television executive at ABC who was one of the first women to sell advertising for the network,
The rental had been home to Sidmore Parnes, a music publisher who edited trade magazines Cash Box and Record World with offices on West 57th Street, a quick cab ride away. He had a taste for European opulence: His living room was embellished with gold leaf and centered on a grand piano. Even the smaller bedroom was walled in fabric, which matched the upholstery on a daybed - the "richly appointed" style typical of a manager who would "rather put another expensive painting on his wall than hire another writer," according to the memoir of one of Parnes's staffers.
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