December 2002

Happiness Suits Her Well,
An Alexandra Stoddard Profile

Every now and then, a wise woman illuminates our collective consciousness like a ray of light. Just when things seem dark and uncertain, from a shaky economy to the random violence of terrorists, this person shines her light down a different path. And she does it while wearing silky shades of hot pink and chartreuse.

Alexandra Stoddard’s message is style, but her mantra is happiness; both of which radiate from the ever-elegant 61-year-old’s colorful couture. Author of 22 inspirational books and an in-demand decorator for the international elite, Alexandra maintains an accessibility that resonates with women looking to add a dollop of joy to their lives.

Her latest book, Choosing Happiness, is the most recent installment in a lifetime spent adoring the details. It is culmination of a lifelong mission to infuse color and light into our personal environments, into our everyday experiences. And it is a thank you to the people, ideas, wisdom and beauty that made Alexandra the embodiment of happiness she is today.

“I first became conscious in my mother’s flower garden when I was three years old,” says Alexandra in a recent phone interview from her New York City apartment. “It was a shocking realization that I was a part of the universe.”

When she was six, Alexandra planted a garden of her own. “It was the love of the garden that made me aware of how beautiful nature is,” she says. But when Alexandra peered into the dreary houses of her mother’s and godmother’s friends, she knew her calling was to help bring the beauty and color of nature into the space in which we live. It was one of the first defining moments in her life.

Alexandra says both her mother and godmother had a decorator instinct and both influential women in her life helped school her in the art of style from early on. Alexandra recognized at a tender age the difference bright curtains, clean windows, and bleached floors can make in the appearance of a room as well as the well being of the homeowner.

In 1959, Alexandra’s world expanded beyond four well-decorated walls when her Aunt Betty invited Alexandra on an around-the-world trip. Aunt Betty was a pioneering social worker of meager means who introduced Alexandra to Eastern ideas and a lasting gravitas. The trip planted in Alexandra a universal comfort with people and broader life perspective that would eventually take form in her artistic vision as both a decorator and a writer.

Alexandra returned to attend the New York School of Interior Design as the school’s first recipient of a full scholarship. There she met her mentor, Eleanor McMillen Brown, at a lecture given by Mrs. Brown. Alexandra was so inspired by Mrs. Brown, she went to work for her until she retired in 1977, when Alexandra started her own international design firm, Alexandra Stoddard Incorporated.

During this formative time in her decorating career, Alexandra had her second defining moment. She realized that her clients merely slept and entertained in their homes, they weren’t truly living in them.

“They were homeless in their houses,” says Alexandra. “These women would set the room up for some future event that never happens.”

Even though she had never wanted to become a writer, Alexandra says she felt compelled to teach women how to authentically express themselves. Alexandra began writing “Style for Living” when she was 26 and pregnant with her first child. Six years and another baby later, her first book was printed … and her marriage dissolved.

Through it all, however, she kept things in perspective. “I’ve never aspired to be a Super Mom,” says Alexandra. She wrote when her children slept and worked to fit her schedule around theirs. “Being a mother is the most important thing in my life…bar none. I was put here on this earth to be a mother.” I just enjoyed every minute with my children. The biggest gift I gave them was an a-ha enthusiasm, that wow for life,” she says.

At 32, Alexandra married Peter Brown, a distinguished trial lawyer, whom she had met playing tennis 20 years before. Alexandra says that nobody supported her relationship with Peter, except her daughters (the youngest, Brooke, actually proposed to Peter). But for the first time, she trusted her instinct and married him anyway.Peter still accompanies Alexandra on every book tour and speaking engagement, always dressed in bright colors and sitting in the front row cheering her on.

Now a grandmother to one-year-old twins, Nicholas and Anna, Alexandra says she finds it easier to listen to her intuition and to express who she really is. No doubt her sunshine yellow and fuchsia accessories help.

“In order to be myself, I have to be different than everybody else,” she says with a smile in her voice.

Happiness suits her well.