Page 26 - VE Magazine - Issue 42

Cosy Nostra
Designer to the Mafia, James Mont was the man who claimed to have coined the phrase ‘Chinese Modern’ – blending Oriental flourishes with Hollywood glamour
BY KARYN “MONKEY-FACE” SPARKS
JAMES MONT (1904-1978) - formerly known as Demetrios Pecin- toglu - was a designer and interior decorator that established a reputation in the States for creating custom made clandestine bars for movie stars and gangsters during Prohibition, with clever compartments for drink, guns and jewellery.
His life and work were shrouded in mystery. He was both a rogue and a charmer with an incredibly bad temper, which repeat- edly got him into trouble and debt during a roller-coaster career that lasted four decades.
He started out as a decorator in the 1920s whilst running a small electrical supply shop in Brooklyn, where he sold his own lamps. The story goes that one day a Mafia member visited with his girlfriend and was so impressed he hired Mont to refurnish his house! He quickly became the decorator of choice to crime bosses and his clients included the likes of Mobster Lucky Luciano, and Frank Costello. By the mid-1930s, his business in New York City was thriving and he employed between 40 and 50 staff.
He married in 1937 (with Bob Hope as Best Man), but it was short lived as his new wife, 25-year-old Korean-American actress Helen Kim Mont, was found dead just 29 days later in their Park Avenue apartment... it was ruled as suicide. It gets worse...
He was a womaniser with a bad temper, who frequently
The best of James Mont represented by Todd Merrill, featuring a full suite of Mont silver gilt 1940s and 50s furnishings presented in grey Dessin Fournir silk velvet on a white goat skin rug
Above left: Mont’s artistic expression manifested itself in many moods, from the exotic and ornate to the sculptural and sometimes naturalistic. The Octopus lamp from c.1950 cost $1,000, a tremendous sum for the period. The legs were cast bronze and were affixed to a curvaceous black lacquered wood core
26 / October-November 2018 / ve
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