Iconic Dallas Designer Loyd Ray Taylor, R.I.P.

Loyd Taylor, one of this city’s most iconic interior designers and taste meisters, died July 1 in hospice care. He was 89.

Sixty-four years ago, Loyd and his long-time partner, Paxton Gremillion, opened a boutique antiques showroom, Loyd-Paxton, on Sale Street in Dallas. It quickly became the talk of the town. Loyd once told me it was all quite accidental: the couple had met at the University of North Texas, and an opera teacher of theirs had given them a collection of antiques to consign. Both Loyd and Paxton had incredible taste and eyes for beautiful interior design. And the more gild, the better.

A Taste Maker for the Decades

This was 1960: Dallas didn’t have many high-end antique shops and didn’t have a nether of the population it does today. But Dallas had families of fortune, fueled of course by oil money. Soon Loyd-Paxton had clients from everywhere, including jet-setters and royalty. Some of their famous clients included Sir Elton John, Saudi Prince Faisal, and the Sultan of Brunei, who bought crates of gilt bronze tables with malachite tops, among other treasures. Loyd-Paxton even outfitted its private jet in a similar manner.

Buoyed by sales, the Sale Street shop relocated to Maple Avenue in 1985. Loyd and Paxton lived above their burgeoning store.

Paper City’s Rebecca Sherman wrote a beautiful piece on Loyd and the Oak Lawn home he shared ever so briefly with Paxton.

Rare French antiques from Loyd-Paxton made their way into Versailles when it underwent renovations, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York purchased pieces, including a dazzling Louis XIV Boulle desk, which had been owned by the Sun King himself. Prominent local families such as Juanita and Henry S. Miller Jr. and Fort Worth’s Martha Hyder hired Loyd-Paxton to design their homes. Architectural Digest often featured the couple’s projects, which were famous for their glamorous interiors and dash of theater.

Rebecca Sherman, PaperCity

A Secret Garden

Their Maple Springs home was an enchanting secret garden, but you wouldn’t know it from the mysterious exterior. We detailed it on CandysDirt.com when it sold.

“An enormous ivy-covered stucco wall is all you can see from the street. Behind it lies not only a secret garden but also perhaps the most mysterious abode you will ever find in Dallas,” Karen Eubank wrote in 2019.

Stunning, Mysterious Abode Offers Your Own Secret Garden

Taylor in Print

Most of us who worked in design media have cherished memories of Loyd Taylor and Paxton Gremillion, who died of cancer in 2014. But few remember him as well as Rob Brinkley, editor-in-chief of The Dallas Morning News’ FD (2012-2016) and co-editor of PaperCity Magazine (2002-2011). Brinkley has been the director of editorial and communications for Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty since 2017.

“When I was the editor-in-chief of FD, the style magazine of The Dallas Morning News, I had the great thrill of putting Loyd Taylor on one of our covers,” Brinkley said. “It was a special issue celebrating men, which might’ve called for a well-known local celebrity or a handsome model in some great clothes. I wanted Loyd — because, to me, he was a celebrity. He deserved his cover.

“The photograph wasn’t pretty — it was absolutely unflinching, with Loyd sort of looking down at the viewer, frowning,” Brinkley said.

“It was a tight, close-up shot of his face, by the great portraitist Adam Fish, in this moody, Rembrandt-esque light. After the issue came out, an editor who had worked on the piece received a voicemail from Loyd, thanking us for the story. At the end of the message, Loyd said, ‘And that cover shot — well, it certainly doesn’t leave anything to the imagination!’ And then he cackled and hung up. I loved that. For all the heightened glamour in Loyd’s world and his exacting taste, he had the ability to laugh at himself — something I always admire in a person.”

‘Loyd Had Style in Everything He Did’

Brinkley added that he loved to hunt through vintage and thrift stores on the weekends and occasionally spotted Loyd Taylor doing the same.

“I was always thrilled that this man of exquisite taste — who knew French chandeliers and Flemish cabinets — would be looking for crazy little kitschy things, too, like I was,” Brinkley said. “Also, I never told him this, but I would always duck into a booth or turn back the other way, so as not to run into him. Why? Because I would be in my worst, junkiest, chore-doing clothes and he would be in some immaculate, badass ensemble — for example, a black leather bomber jacket over black leather pants. He looked like Karl Lagerfeld roaming the aisles of a flea market. I looked like a laundry pile. Loyd had style in everything he did.”

Brinkley recalled that he used to receive Loyd-Paxton press releases at PaperCity. They were always sent by mail, in envelopes, with a typed-up description of the new pieces and printed-out glossy photos. Everyone had gone to emailed press releases and digital photos by then — but not Loyd and Paxton. They wouldn’t dare.”

Let me add to that: Loyd was definitely not comfortable with modern technoloy. When I launched CandysDirt.com in 2011, he told me over and over how much he adored it, but where he could buy the printed articles?

I have many memories of sipping champagne at their showroom, surrounded by malachite clocks, elaborate armoires, and gilded tables. I secretly hoped to hire them someday to create one room in my home where I could implore drama — with mirrors and lacquer, not unlike their Athena condo which they sheathed in black piano lacquer, with black marble, stainless steel, and mirrors.

Painting With Fingernail Polish

My favorite Loyd-Paxton story was the condo the pair designed at 3525 Turtle Creek Blvd., Penthouse 22-A. (22-B was owned by the late actress Greer Garson). When they couldn’t find the right paint — they wanted lots of gloss — they bought out every bottle of pearlized nail polish in Dallas. When they ran out, they contacted Revlon and purchased 50-gallon containers.

To create the obscure appearance the duo cracked thousands of eggshells and glued them onto the back of the glass panels before applying the pearlized nail polish. Brinkley says the condo was done in the late 1970s for socialite Nancy Chandler. It’s now owned by Jim Pitts, a former politician. Alas, the oval bedroom with the silver-leafed ceiling (!!) has been redecorated, but the main living spaces are pretty intact as they were after the Loyd-Paxton renovation. The unit was on last year’s Turtle Creek Association Home Tour.

Versailles in The Sky: The Ultimate Turtle Creek Penthouse is Finally Available

Loyd is survived by sister-in-law Anne Gremillion (John Whitworth Gayle); and his friend Keiichi. In lieu of flowers, loved ones have asked that you consider making a gift in Loyd’s name to Uptown Players of Dallas, Weimaraner Rescue of Texas, or the charity of your choice.