The Famous Author Who Restored Grey Gardens Found a Jackie O. Treasure in the Attic

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below."

The full interview with Sally Quinn is featured in season 2 of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House. Listen to the episode here.

In 1979, writer Sally Quinn and her husband Ben Bradlee of Washington Post fame drove from D.C. to East Hampton to see a property that was "more of a ruin than a habitable home," as she described on House Beautiful's podcast, Dark House. It was so rundown, in fact, that the real estate agent refused to go inside and Bradlee walked out choking within minutes (he has a cat allergy and they found 52 dead feral cats around the property, along with some raccoon skulls on the porch), so Quinn ventured on alone in the balmy August afternoon to meet then-owner, Little Edie Beale. The property in question? Grey Gardens.

The home was the subject of the famous 1975 documentary, Grey Gardens, at which point it was already in a state of filth, but was once a grand estate that represented the obscene wealth of New York's elite. The real stars of the film are mother-daughter duo Little Edie Bouvier Beale and Big Edie Ewing Bouvier Beale, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

Two years prior to filming, the home was deemed hazardous and was almost demolished by the town before Onassis and her sister, Lee Radziwill, stepped in to help with some minor repairs. Two years after the film was released, Big Edie passed away, and it took Little Edie two more years to finally find the right person (Quinn) to revive Grey Gardens, as she refused to sell it to anyone who planned to knock it down (which would have been much cheaper, according to most experts).

So, on that fateful day, Little Edie gave Quinn a warm welcome, singing "welcome to Grey Gardens," as though it was some fabulous palace. "She did a pirouette and said 'all it needs is a coat of paint," Quinn said. Meanwhile, Quinn added, "there was cat shit all over the walls and the smell and filth were unbelievable, but we both saw it the way it once was." Beyond the veneer of those unglamorous remnants, the home's former grandeur was still obvious to Quinn.

"What would make me say, 'This is the most beautiful house I've ever seen,' when it was a garbage pit? Sometimes I just have those feelings—I'm psychic," Quinn divulged. She was determined, despite the protests of everyone she encountered. Her husband told her she was out of her mind, and her best friend and neighbor Nora Ephron staged an intervention to prevent Quinn from buying Grey Gardens. "You can get on it and come with me or not, but I'm buying it with my own book money," she told her husband. Even the contractor said, "'You've gotta tear it down. It would be a lot easier and cheaper to rebuild,'" Quinn recalls. "But then it wouldn't be Grey Gardens, would it? It'd just be another house, or worse, a copy of another house."

So Quinn bought it for $220,000, and told Little Edie "she could leave it broom clean, or she could leave all of the furniture and everything in it," Quinn explained. Little Edie opted for the latter, and when Sally ventured into the attic and "the tiny former maid's room behind the so-called kitchen, [I found] them piled to the ceiling with antiques: wicker chaises, beautiful linens, china... I've never been so excited. I even started smoking again," Quinn laughed. So began the restoration process, which turned out beautifully. And psychic or not, she was right about it being worth the effort. What exactly did the decorating process entail?

Quinn began by imagining what Grey Gardens would've been like in its heyday at the turn of the century and then envisioning creative ways to incorporate those details into the contemporary design. "I found [inspiration] in an antique magazine that I ordered, so everything was of the period," she said. (When in doubt, go flip through some old magazines!) And everything that couldn't be restored was duplicated to evoke the period. For example, "the curtains in the living room were still hanging but were in shreds, so I took the fabric to a decorator to match them," she said. "I found every artisan that could restore everything that needed to be restored. I had the wicker guy, the silver guy, the wood guy..."

The home was built in 1897 and had been lived in the entire time, so not everything was from the same period. "There was some stuff from the 1920s and then '30s and then '40s. So there was an eclectic mix of stuff, which made it more fun. The furniture [left in the house] was all old, and not all of it was fabulous antiques," she explained. One of her favorite finds was a cabinet that belonged to Little Edie and was filled with all of these little tiny animal figures. "It was a glass menagerie with four or five shelves in perfect shape." Quinn kept it locked in the study because people always wanted to take out the fragile animals and play with them.

Quinn's other prized discovery was actually connected to Onassis. "There was a wooden crate in the maid's room and it was addressed to Jackie Kennedy. It had never been opened and was nailed shut. We pried it open and there was a gorgeous sterling silver mirror with all kinds of filigree around the edges. It was an odd shape with beveled glass in the mirror and a dark sapphire blue underneath the silver," she explained. It's one of the only items from Grey Gardens that she still has after she parted ways with almost everything at an estate sale when she sold the house in 2017.

Thanks to her, Grey Gardens was like a phoenix rising from the ashes, and the Bradlee Quinns enjoyed it in all its original glory as a family vacation home until 2017. The result was beautiful and served as a mystical backdrop for she and her family for the better of four decades. Not to mention, the home commemorates two fabulous women in American history." I was just so ecstatic. It was a dream," she beamed. May every lovely old home lost to time find its very own Sally to swoop in, see its potential (either with a little imagination or actual magic powers), and save it from the wrecking ball.

Curious to hear more about Grey Gardens and hear more from Sally Quinn? Listen to this week's episode of our haunted house podcast series, Dark House, for exclusive ghost stories from Quinn and compelling insights about her many haunted homes.

You Might Also Like

• 7 Secrets HomeGoods Employees Won't Tell You

• 19 Closet Organization Ideas You'll Want to Steal Immediately

• 15 Styling Tricks That Make A Small Living Room Seem Bigger Than It Is