Rooms

Henderson, a journalist and book author ( Paris Embassy Cookbook ), here offers an extended paean to the Egyptian-born, Oxford-educated interior designer who has created many sumptuous environments in and out of Europe. (Among them was the redecorated ballroom, featured in these pages, of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., then occupied by the author and her husband, British ambassador to the U.S.) Discussing suites of rooms designed by Stefanidis, and then examining each room in detail, the author indulges a fondness for effusive commentary (e.g., the designer is compared with Tolstoy) that strains her credibility. Grounds for praise are evident in Stefanidis's aristocratic interiors, which typically evoke a ravishing world of hushed European hauteur. (Some, orchestrated with upscale ``simplicity,'' are perhaps more beautiful still.) But because Henderson does not reckon objectively with his esthetic, she does not serve the designer's best interests, or ours. (Dec.)