Visit the Glamorous World of the Ladies Who Lunch in “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”

While it’s not clear who playwright Stephen Sondheim had in mind when he wrote “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch” for his hit 1970 Broadway musical Company, lyrics such as “lounging in their caftans and planning a brunch on their own behalf” certainly applies to literary legend Truman Capote’s flock of glamorous and well-heeled Manhattan women. Capote, best known for writing In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was perhaps equally famous for his cultivation of bold-list names in the society and gossip pages.

Based on Laurence Leamer’s best-selling book Capote’s Women, Ryan Murphy’s latest FX series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans tells the tale of the Capote’s friendship—and its eventual demise—with Barbara “Babe” Paley (played by Naomi Watts), Lucy “C.Z.” Guest (Chloe Sevigny), Nancy “Slim” Keith (Diane Lane), and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart). Nicknamed by Capote (Tom Hollander) his “swans,” they enjoyed weekly gossip and boozy see-and-be-seen lunches at La Côte Basque before posing for the paparazzi waiting outside. The writer’s thinly veiled story of their lives and secrets appeared in a scandalous article, “La Côte Basque, 1965,” published in Esquire in 1975; alas, their friendship became a juicy history.

The clubby Upper East Side world of the 1960s was conjured by production designer Mark Ricker and set decorator Cherish Hale. No stranger to chronicling the interiors of the famous (including Halston’s home in the eponymous Netflix series and Julia Child’s in Julie & Julia), Ricker notes, “With real historical characters, there is a road map—a North Star of sorts—to follow in order to honor and recreate the environments they lived in. It depends how well-documented they are in terms of research, but also familiarity to the public, and I enjoy bringing them back to life in all their specific details.” Spanning a period from the 1950s through the ’70s, the designers were fortunate to have scads of photographs and newspaper and magazine clippings at their disposal. “There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when you’re presented with imagery like this,” notes the Academy Award–nominated designer.

The homes of the Swans are as distinctive as the women themselves. Much of the action takes place in the apartments of Babe and her husband, CBS founder Bill Paley, which includes their suite at the St. Regis and a grand apartment at 820 Fifth Avenue, an Upper East Side Beaux Arts building. For Babe, who was hailed as one of the most stylish women of all time, Hale notes, “It was only natural to use floral wallpapers and fabric, as she was a delicate, flowery type.”

One of the standout interiors is an Indian calico-tented room in the Paleys’ apartment in the St. Regis Hotel, whose real-life counterpart was designed by the legendary Billy Baldwin. (Eagle-eyed streaming aficionados might also recall it from Halston, which also featured sets by Ricker and Hale). Because the Paleys were serious art collectors, Picasso’s Leading a Horse and other top-tier works by Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Renoir feature prominently. To recreate the museum-worthy works, Hale commissioned than 40 printed canvases. “We used the Library of Congress as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website, where you can print works of art if they’re in the public domain,” she says. (“But you still have to run it all through the legal department!”)

For Capote’s apartment in United Nations Plaza, the designers lucked out with an invitation to view the current interiors. “The basic footprint was the same, and miraculously the bathroom had its original, fantastic white and gray marble. The kitchen had been updated, but the rest of it was pretty true to form. It’s a great treat for those of us who have been living in photo research to be able to walk into the actual space,” Ricker explains. Replicated on a soundstage, the look is vintage Capote, filled with stacks of books, knickknacks, gilt étagères, and his collection of embroidered pillows (think bunny rabbits!), along with the mirrored walls popular in the ’70s. (The design team photographed the incredible river views from another U.N. apartment for the set.) And, in a twist of fate, Ricker and Hale were able to add an original accessory: a porcelain cherub, sold at Capote’s Bonhams auction, that happened to be in a house that executive producer Gus Van Sant was renting. (Look for the “Easter egg” by Capote’s red typewriter.)

Other notable sets include C.Z. Guest’s Palm Beach mansion (recreated at the Village Club in Sands Point, New York) as well as her Long Island estate, Templeton (shot on location in the actual home, which is now owned by the New York Institute of Technology), which was “all about gardens and florals,” says Hale. Slim Keith’s well-appointed California home captures her “tomboy” casualness, while Lee Radziwill’s New York apartment captures her iconic sense of style with a bold red lacquered living room and uber-feminine dressing room.

New Yorkers of a certain age will undoubtedly recognize La Côte Basque, Henri Soulé’s popular French restaurant whose reservations list read like a who’s who of Manhattan in the 1950s and ’60s. Since few interior images existed, Ricker tapped his cinematic memory bank, recalling the 1992 film Light Sleeper (starring Susan Sarandon and Willem Dafoe), which featured a brief snippet of the restaurant. The result was a mural of seaside France and tufted banquettes as the perfect place to be seen.

Capote’s legendary 1966 Black and White Ball is also recreated, depicted in black and white as if it were taken from the Maysles brothers documentary. Often referred to as “the party of the century,” the ball itself was inspired by the black-and-white Ascot scene from My Fair Lady—and was, in retrospect, perhaps the swan song of Truman Capote.

Watch Feud: Capote vs. The Swans  on FX.