Lost to coronavirus: Free-spirited interior designer was ‘life of the party’ into her 90s – Palm Beach Post

Anne Zuckerberg had a reputation as an in-demand interior designer with an eye for tasteful antiques.

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Coronavirus: The ones we lost The Palm Beach Post is chronicling the lives of the people in Palm Beach County who died in the pandemic.

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One day in 1958, a free-spirited New Jersey homemaker with a creative streak took out an ad in the local newspaper: Confused in choosing fabrics? Think you cant afford a decorator? Call me."

Soon, Anne Zuckerbergs phone started ringing. Sporadically at first. Then seemingly nonstop.

In the ensuing decades, Zuckerberg built a reputation as an in-demand interior designer with an eye for tasteful antiques and a talent for sprucing up living rooms, penthouses and lobbies across New Jersey and New York. An early client was Skitch Henderson, the Grammy Award-winning New York Pops conductor and first Tonight Show bandleader.

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But Zuckerberg wanted more. With boundless energy, she traveled the world, became an artist later in life and partied with friends at Palm Beach galas into her 90s.

It seemed like nothing could stop her. Then came the coronavirus pandemic.

The deadly respiratory disease somehow found Zuckerberg in late March, perhaps, as her daughter suspects, while she was recovering in a rehab facility from a broken hip suffered two months earlier when she fell at her Sapodilla Avenue apartment in West Palm Beach.

Struggling to breathe on March 31, she was taken to Good Samaritan Medical Center. She died April 4, about two months shy of her 95th birthday.

To think that that virus took her down in a matter of days is just uncanny," said her daughter-in-law, Marybeth Zuckerberg. She walked every day. She had better legs than most 60-year-olds. Annie was a fighter to the very end."

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Zuckerberg moved to West Palm Beach years ago to be close to her friends, who included Palm Beachers and members of the local arts community. She appeared in Palm Beach Daily News photos at the Armory Art Centers Mad Hatters luncheon, Miami Ballet receptions and Kravis Center galas.

She was a great person who lived life to the fullest," said Susan Bloom, one of her closest friends. We lost a good one."

The daughter of a builder, Zuckerberg was always drawn to the arts. During her three decades as an interior decorator, she dabbled in painting interpretive portraits as a hobby.

But when she retired, she painted prolifically," said her son, Sid Zuckerberg. She did some amazing stuff. Some she gave away and sold."

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Just five years ago, a collection of her paintings was displayed at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County gallery in downtown Lake Worth Beach.

"We were proud to showcase Ms. Zuckerberg's artwork in a 2015 solo exhibition at the Cultural Council," said Dave Lawrence, the councils president and chief executive. This is a big loss for Palm Beach County's artist community, but we will continue to honor her legacy in our hearts and creative endeavors."

For creative inspiration, Zuckerberg seemed to tap the past, even though her ideas were progressive.

She loved Marie Antoinette. She thought she was Marie Antoinette reincarnated," said her daughter, Elish Kodish. She was just a really independent spirit ahead of her time."

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In an interview in 1969, Zuckerberg acknowledged her consternation 11 years earlier when she decided to place the newspaper ad seeking clients, against the wishes of her husband.

I love glamour and design but was always hiding in the background. It took guts to launch my career but I knew I had to do it," she told The Record of Hackensack, N.J., for a story under a headline touting her as a New-Look Designer."

To gain more experience, she joined the staff at Tony Art Galleries in Englewood, N.J., where she developed a knack for arranging displays that caught the attention of frequent customers like Rat Packer Joey Bishop and comedian Buddy Hackett.

She would make vignettes with different antiques in the store, and from there she got jobs. Thats how she built her career," said Kodish, who took over Anne Zuckerberg Associates when her mom retired. She had a very top-echelon clientele."

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Kodish wouldnt divulge the names of her mother's clients. But in 1969, they included Henderson, the orchestra conductor for whose Manhattan home she selected upholstery fabric, and the owners of the Hazel Bishop cosmetics company, inventor of the first long-lasting lipstick, according to her profile in The Record.

She attributes her success to hard-nosed aggressiveness, a trait she had to cultivate in order to make her presence felt," the story said.

The story also described the antiques inside Zuckerbergs home in Teaneck, N.J., a Louis XV sofa covered with black linen next to a glass top cocktail table, an early Dutch bombe chest with marquetry, a Japanese table she stripped down and bleached, and walls painted cognac.

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"She wasn't one of these designers that did pretty little things. She really, architecturally, did all kinds of buildings, complicated lighting, custom furniture," Kodish said.

My mom worked well into her late 80s. She would have worked forever. She loved her work."

A year ago, after turning 94, Zuckerberg danced at her grandson's wedding. She enjoyed living by herself at The Metropolitan, a condo building not far from Cityplace and the Dreyfoos School of the Arts.

Her main focus was on her friends," Sid said. She had a very active social life. Her friends were much younger than she. They wanted her around. She was the life of the party."

One day in January, in the kitchen at her condo, she took a wrong turn and went down. She broke her hip," Sid said. Although she was a very robust person, still, she was 94."

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After successful surgery at Good Samaritan Medical Center, she was released to a rehab facility to recuperate. She was doing well," said Sid, who visited her for two weeks before going back home to Connecticut.

After she was rushed to Good Sam on March 31, she was put on a ventilator. She was diagnosed with pneumonia. A coronavirus test came back positive on April 2, two days before she died.

Her family praised the compassionate hospital staff for setting up a video conference call so they could say their final goodbyes.

I keep feeling like she's in Mexico on vacation and she's going to come home," Kodish said, but that's not going to happen."

jcapozzi@pbpost.com

@JCapozzipbpost

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Lost to coronavirus: Free-spirited interior designer was 'life of the party' into her 90s - Palm Beach Post