queerplaces - Horace H. Terrell

Queer Places:
Pratt Institute, 200 Willoughby Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205
234 E 52nd St, New York, NY 10022

Horace H. Terrell (September 29, 1906 - October 14, 1980) was an interior decorator. By mid-1940s, Mac Harshberger had developed a relationship with close friend Horace H. Terrell, who had graduated from Pratt in 1927. Terrell had maintained a very good career in New York as an interior decorator and was positive support after the stress from Holland Robinson's declining condition (Robinson was Harshberger's former partner). After Robinson's death in 1950, Harshberger moved into Terrell's home at Weston, Connecticut, and remained there until his death in 1975.

Horace Terrell was born on 29 September 1906, in Albany, Albany, New York, to Clarence Terrell (1879-1960) and Sadie V. Wiltsie (1878-1956). In 1930, at the age of 24, his occupation is listed as designer for electric. He lived 234 East 52nd street, New York, in 1940. After Mac Harshberger's stroke in 1960, they retired to live in a forested rural setting in Weston, CT. They managed to endow the modest cottage, known as the Skullery, with a great deal of style and charm. Harshberger suffered a second stroke there and died in 1975.

He died on 14 October 1980, in Norwalk, Fairfield, Connecticut, at the age of 74.

Horace H. Terrell in bathtub by Mac Harshberger

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The Lavender Palette: Gay Culture and the Art of Washington (2020), David F. Martin