The New Orleans Saints have a new heir apparent in the form of owner Tom Benson's wife, Gayle. Benson typed up a letter articulating his disappointment in daughter Renee and grandchildren Rita and Ryan and subsequently restructured his sportsball assets to wife Gayle. The typeset on that letter's gotten quite a bit of heat, prompting speculative Who Dats to proclaim that it's the work of Gayle herself. Given the fact that Gayle's life before joining the Benson empire was marked by an aesthetic-heavy career in interior design, we here at CurbedNOLA are a little skeptical about those claims.
Now that a lawsuit has been filed by Rite and co, every little detail of Gayle's life is being dug up and scrutinized, including her numerous lawsuits as an interior designer. What hasn't been said about Gayle? Her thoughts on what makes a home sparkle. After the jump, we present a compendium of Gayle's interior design wisdom, which hopefully may help discern who wrote the large font typed letter basically telling the young Bensons to stuff it.
· Gayle on the temperament of physical structures: "Buildings are like children. They're all different."
· Gayle on the contentious issue of decorative screens: "Screens give a room texture... They make a wonderful backdrop, are easy to move around and fit in beautifully with other things in a room."
· Gayle on redecorating a boat: "Even though this boat is a big one, you still have to think of decorating on a small scale because of the small areas involved... You have the same basic considerations of design and you must pay the same attention to detail."
· Gayle on people aesthetics: ""I notice things... My clients pay me to pay attention to detail. If I don't pay attention to my staff in my office, how can I do my job?"
· Gayle lays down the law of good dining rooms: "A dining room should be a room for pleasure and enjoyment, so if you don't have a natural atmosphere like a wonderful view, you have to make up for it in decor... Red is not a good color in a dining room; it is not relaxing. If you notice, red is used in a lot of fast food places, where they don't want you to linger over your meals... If you are lucky enough to have a fireplace in your dining room, play it up as a focal point in the room... If the space is exceptionally large, then put two or three tables in the room."