Today, a document of a meeting that should have happened decades ago: Joyce Wadler meets New York painter Hunt Slonem. At first blush, the article reads like an exquisite corpse.

People come and go in the homes of the painter Hunt Slonem, both the quick and the dead... Lunch is Louisiana takeout: boudin sausage, pecan pie, a local desert called ooey gooey. The talk is of a portrait, just hung, of Catherine of Aragon... Then Mr. Slonem's caretaker calls with word of an interloper: a voodoo head, or something that looks like one, has been found in the third-floor ceiling earlier in the week and tucked away in a kitchen cabinet. Mr. Slonem goes at once to retrieve the head, a mud-colored walnut-size carving of a skull, with a tiny straw hat and pointy appendages. Then he retreats to make a call.

As the intrepid reader continues, he realizes Slonem is completely insane—equal parts James Merrill, Liberace, Valentino, Lou Reed, Bert Sugar, Keith Haring, and Scarlett O'Hara. Also he owns five houses.

Not only the Louisiana plantation that is the focus of the article but another one a hundred miles away. He also owns an 89-room New York studio, and it really is awesome. And we're not talking closets, we're talking legitimate rooms. The place was profiled in Men's Style. You can watch the video if you like. Annual rent on the NY studio alone is $300K, while the southern manse cost him $625,000 and another Kingston, NY house set him back $770,000. The article mentions the fact that Hunt's paintings sell for around $70K which is relatively chump change in the art world.

So the real question, apart from why isn't this guy married to Tim Gunn already, is how in the world did he make so much money? If you have any idea, for we are truly confounded, let us know.

Southern Gothic: Ghosts Welcome [NYT]
INside Hunt Slonem's NYC Studio [Style]