McMillen: 100 Years of American Decorating

McMillen: 100 Years of American Decorating is a sweeping two-volume history of America’s oldest and longest-running full-service interior design firm, McMillen Inc.. Written by McMillen President Ann Pyne, the book traces the evolution of the legendary firm from its founding in 1924 by Eleanor McMillen Brown through a century of cultural, architectural, and aesthetic change.

Richly illustrated with photographs accompanying every chapter, the volumes chronicle McMillen’s pioneering role in shaping American interior decoration through periods of prosperity, depression, war, postwar expansion, and modern transformation. Beginning with the firm’s “Successful Beginnings” in the 1920s, the narrative follows Eleanor McMillen Brown’s conviction that decorating was both an art and a science—grounded in scholarship, craftsmanship, historical understanding, and exacting standards rather than passing fashion.

Across chapters exploring experimentation during the 1930s, wartime adaptation, the celebrated “Glory Years” of the 1950s and 1960s, and the firm’s evolution into the partnership era, the book reveals how McMillen cultivated some of the most influential figures in American design, including Albert Hadley and Mark Hampton. It also examines the firm’s work for distinguished private clients and historic residences.

More than a company history, McMillen: 100 Years of American Decorating is a portrait of American taste, craftsmanship, and domestic life across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Through archival material, personal histories, and lavish photography, the book documents the enduring philosophy, artistry, and influence that established McMillen as a defining force in American interior design.