“The Tropicana deal secured my promotion to partner, and I celebrated by redecorating my office. If I was going to be there twelve hours a day, I wanted it to be a cocoon against all the psychological stresses of my work, cozy, like a beautiful sitting room or library in an English house. I had the walls painted partly in reddish-maroon, the rest covered in the kind of grass cloth I’d seen at Lee Eastman’s place. I installed a chocolate carpet, chintz chairs, and a partners’ desk from the 1890s. It was exquisite. No one else at the firm had ever done this. It wasn’t how they thought about work. But I didn’t consider myself to be at work.”
Excerpt From: Stephen A. Schwarzman. “What It Takes.”