For more than 75 years, the Perrin family living room in Midtown Manhattan on West 54th Street has hosted arts salons with twin, grand pianos.  Guests have included Barbra Streisand, Jane Withers, Mary Martin, Margaret Whiting, Elaine Stritch, Peter Shaffer, John Berendt, Bill Cunningham, Julie Wilson, Marilyn Maye, Harry Rigby, Julius Monk, Cy Walter, Walter Bobbie, Lee Roy Reams, Billy Roy, Tex Arnold, Murray Grand, Dennis Buck, Anne Francine, Claiborne Cary, Stan Freeman, Don Smith, Hildegarde, Barbara Cook, Sylvia Syms, Celeste Holm, Lisa Kirk, Patricia Morrison, Dody Goodman, Marni Nixon, Liliane Montevecchi, Earl Blackwell, Johnny Meyer, Michael Feinstein, Vince Giordano, Judy Kuhn, Amber Edwards, Lee Musiker, Jo Ann Worley, Hugh Hardy, Billy Stritch, Tedd Firth, Ted Rosenthal, Mario Buatta, Ernst Märzendorfer, Dorothy Wiggins, Jack Wrangler, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, and many others.

Historic artifacts in the living room include Stan Freeman's concert grand piano on which he accompanied Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich (and which previously appeared on concert stages around the world with Claudio Arrau), a candelabra and ashtray from the Drake Room piano bar at The Drake Hotel, an ashtray from Julius Monk's two piano nightclub, Julie Wilson's feather boa, Claudette Colbert's taffeta dressing gown, and furniture from The Ziegfeld Theatre.

The living room hosted rehearsals for the Peabody Award-winning WABC Radio program, "Piano Playhouse" as well as Margaret Whiting's act with two pianos accompanying her, and many Julie Wilson and Elaine Stritch projects.   Auditions and rehearsals were held there for the original production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's “A Grand Night for Singing” which moved from Rainbow & Stars to Broadway and was nominated for two 1993 Tony® Awards including Best Musical.  The living room and its pianos also hosted rehearsals for the rest of the critically-acclaimed series of musical revues at Rainbow & Stars saluting Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, George & Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jule Styne, Lerner & Loewe, Leonard Bernstein, 20th Century R&B, and 20th Century Pop.  Events which rehearsed in the space included the Night of 100 Stars party at Radio City Music Hall; the First New York Festival of the Arts’ A Cabaret for Cole, the first several years of the annual Cabaret Convention, many fashion week events, tributes to Michael Eisner, Frank Bennack, Donald Tober, and Lawrence Benenson, the 100th anniversary of San Diego’s landmark Hotel Del Coronado; the 125th anniversary of A&P, the 150th anniversary of Tiffany’s, Random House’s 75th, Helen Hayes’ 90th, Playbill’s 100th, and Cole Porter’s 100th.  Numerous other projects have been conceived, written, and / or developed in the space by Forrest Perrin, Lesley Davison Perrin, Wendy Perrin, Margaret Perrin, and Scott Perrin including the Off-Broadway revue, "Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know" where the Fodor's travel guide of the same name was written by Wendy Perrin, the musical parody was written in part by Lesley Davison Perrin, and the show was produced by Scott Perrin.  All content on this page was recorded or created in the living room.

Parties in the living room have been described as:

"The epitome of classic New York" (Jahleah Santiago, Spoiled NYC)

"Delicious music" (Celia Ipiotis, Eye On Dance and The Arts)

"Where twin grand pianos and over seven decades of Broadway and cabaret history come to life” (Michael Portantiere, Broadway Radio)

"Very, very wow" (Griffin Miller, City Guide)

"The kind of lively, sophisticated gathering Midwesterners who read Vanity Fair and The New Yorker imagine behind every lit Manhattan window." (Alix Cohen, Woman Around Town).

"Oh, if these walls could talk!!! Actually, the walls would probably also sing because so much music has been played and planned over the decades at the elegant apartment in question dubbed '54 Above'” (Rob Lester, Stage and Cinema)

"Partying like it was...1925" (Marilyn Lester, NiteLife Exchange)

In 1991, Stephen Holden of The New York Times reviewed a show that was created and nurtured in the living room: "At moments like this - and there are many throughout the evening - 'The Rodgers & Hart Revue' [at Rainbow & Stars] captures an elusive spirit that so many similar shows aim for but fail to achieve:  the affectionate camaraderie of talented friends making inspired music together in somebody's living room."