In this late 1960s bathroom/dressing room, the tub was dominant — mirrored and pilastered like a silvery four-poster, canopied with light.
Created for House Beautiful magazine, this shiny bathroom decor was interior designer Albert Herbert’s concept of the ultimate in contemporary bathrooms.
This centered around the new, oval, broader-than-usual, bone-colored “Ultra Bath” by American Standard — a paragon of bathing benisons, directly reflecting consumers’ wishes as expressed in the 1966 Cornell bathroom study.
Among these: a skidproof surface, built-in hand grips, automatic controls for water level and temperature, and a whirlpool.
Its unprecedented “Shower Tower” was flanked with cabinets. These, like tub and lavatory niche, were given a sheathing of mirror.
The overall look: shiny, clean, crystalline — from the tub’s steel uprights to the partitioning mesh curtains of linked glass loops.
The buttercup freshness: slick-finish, glossy small-patterned wallpaper and a lush stretch of nylon carpet that gave the room the air of a sumptuous boudoir.
