Stéphane Boudin

Stéphane Boudin (28 October 1888 – 18 October 1967) was a French interior designer and a president of Maison Jansen, the influential Paris-based interior decorating firm.

Biography His father was a passementerie manufacturer.

Boudin is best known for being asked by U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to join American antiques expert Henry Francis du Pont of the Winterthur Museum and interior designer Sister Parish in the renovation and restoration of the White House from 1961 to 1963. After Boudin impressed the first lady with his initial work in the Red and Blue rooms, Mrs. Kennedy gave him increasing control of the redecoration project, to the consternation of du Pont and Parish.

Boudin was introduced to Mrs. Kennedy through Jayne Wrightsman, after his work on the Wrightsman's house, Blythedunes, in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Dining Room at Leeds Castle, designed by Boudin for Lady Baillie c. 1935. Jansen is known for designing interiors for the royal families of Yugoslavia, Belgium and Iran, the German Reichsbank during the period of National Socialism, and Leeds Castle in Kent for its last owner, Olive, Lady Baillie.

For Henry Channon, Boudin designed in 1934 a rococo fantasy-style room. For Elsie de Wolfe, he designed a party pavilion, her Paris house, her country house and another house in the Bois de Boulogne.

Boudin also decorated Les Ormes (The Elms) the Washington, D.C. home of Perle Mesta, the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, and her sister, Marguerite Tyson; the house and its furnishings eventually were purchased by Lyndon B. Johnson. The Johnsons hired Genevieve Hendricks to integrate a touch of Texas into the Boudin decor because, as Time quoted Johnson as saying, "Every time somebody calls it a château, I lose 50,000 votes back in Texas."