William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Plenty of prolific designers started off on slightly different tracks than those on which they ended up, but rarely did they begin their careers in a totally separate industry like William “Billy” Haines did. Before he gained a reputation as a furniture designer and decorator to Hollywood’s biggest and brightest, Haines was himself a star of the silver screen.
After leaving his native Virginia as a young man, Haines earned modeling and acting jobs in New York City and then won a Goldwyn Studios talent contest in the early 1920s. The next frontier was California, where he would go on to appear in more than 50 films. His acting career was halted abruptly in 1933, allegedly because he refused to leave his partner, British footballer Jimmy Shields, at the request of his representation at MGM Studios. Whether it was the fact that Haines was one half of Hollywood’s first openly gay marriage or that there were other factors at play, MGM cofounder Louis B. Mayer canceled his contract.
Luckily for Haines, he had nurtured a side career that kept him on Hollywood’s radar: He was a prominent antiques dealer on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Haines dedicated himself full-time to both dealing and designing furniture as soon as his tenure as a leading man came to an end.
Haines collaborated with the era’s biggest names in architecture and created a desert living room for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco that featured walls made of California Joshua wood and a painting by Georgia O’ Keeffe. He paid close attention to lighting design, employed hand-painted wallpaper and favored featuring Chinese ceramics alongside Chippendale chairs and ottomans for entertaining. His most famous clients included Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Betsy Bloomingdale and more. Crawford played a significant role in kick-starting his career when she commissioned Haines to decorate her entire home in Brentwood.
Haines was such an esteemed tastemaker that he’s among those credited with having cemented Hollywood Regency as a reputable design style. (Its origins are owed to influential interior decorator Dorothy Draper.) While he gravitated toward the look of chinoiserie and English furniture, his signature was low-level seating and giltwood accents. Haines’s interior design style was so in vogue that Nancy Reagan became one of his biggest fans and eventually enlisted Ted Graber, Haines’s successor following his death in 1973, to decorate several private and public rooms in the White House.
Find a collection of vintage William Haines lounge chairs, lighting fixtures and other furniture on 1stDibs.
1950s American Hollywood Regency Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Ash, Walnut
1950s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
1950s Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Teak
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
1950s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Iron
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Walnut
1950s Finnish Scandinavian Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Birch
Mid-20th Century Italian Scandinavian Modern William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Walnut
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Brass, Steel
1940s American Vintage William Billy Haines Desks and Writing Tables
Maple
