The Barbizon is recorded as more than a place to stay: it offered ordinary hotel rooms as well as a terrace apartment, and became the setting for a moment of tension between Victor and Halston. Its lodging costs and the candlesticks left as security make the hotel part of the diary’s account of precarious arrangements, not merely a passing address.

Hotel and Residence

On May 31, 1984, Andy Warhol visited Victor’s new apartment at The Barbizon. The terrace was beautiful and, by his estimate, about twenty feet by twenty feet. The apartment cost $1,400 a week; a room at the hotel could be had for $84 a night. These contrasting prices place Victor’s apartment within a hotel that served both as a short-term lodging option and as a residence.

Victor and Halston

In a separate diary entry, Victor called several times and said he was staying at The Barbizon because Halston was changing the locks. The diary connects that move with an argument over Peretti candlesticks: Halston suspected Victor of stealing them, but they had been borrowed and left with the hotel as a security deposit.

The Candlesticks and Victor’s Work

The dispute had a history. Victor had given Andy Warhol two candlesticks at Christmas, on the condition that Halston could obtain more; otherwise, Warhol was to return them. Warhol checked and found that Tiffany had more. At the apartment, he also noted that Victor had saved every photograph of every window display he had ever made for Halston. The saved photographs offer a glimpse of Victor’s accumulated work even as his move to The Barbizon marks a break in his living arrangements with Halston.