Naomi Leff Dies in New York

Naomi Leff, designer of the Rhinelander Mansion and other elegant retail spaces for Ralph Lauren, Ferragamo, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and others, died on Sunday in New York. She was 66.

The cause was complications of liver disease.

While Leff began designing stores in 1980, and was the senior designer at Bloomingdale’s from 1975 to 1980, she first attracted wide attention outside of the retail world in 1986, when she transformed the 1898 Rhinelander Mansion at Madison Avenue and 72nd Street in New York into the flagship store for Polo Ralph Lauren. The New York Times architectural critic called it “the most successful conversion of a New York house into a luxury emporium since Cartier took over the former Morton Plant residence on Fifth Avenue.” He said it achieved “just the right balance between beautiful objects for sale and beautiful objects placed to enhance the experience of being in a stage set.”

Leff was born in 1939, in The Bronx, N.Y. She attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, then received a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Cortland and a master’s in sociology at the University of Wisconsin.

After teaching elementary school in the New York City public school system for a few years, she enrolled at Pratt Institute, earning a master’s in environment design with a minor in architecture. In 1980 she opened her own design office, Naomi Leff & Associates, concentrating from the beginning on retail (as well as residential) design.