Ernest D. Wildner-Fox, a Parsons-educated interior designer and artist who lived in Montauk for more than 40 years, died on June 26 after two days of hospice care in Lehigh Acres, Fla., where he had been living since 2017. The cause was complications from a recent surgery. He was 81.
In his career, Mr. Wildner-Fox worked for the Ethan Allen and Dorothy Draper interior design firms. He worked on many notable properties, his family said, including the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Mich., the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, and the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla. A watercolorist, oil painter, and designer of scarves, he exhibited with the Art Association of Cooperstown, N.Y., where his parents had a summer home.
In Montauk, where he had lived from 1973 to 2017, Mr. Wildner-Fox contributed artistic architectural renderings to the Montauk Playhouse Community Center project. That work continues to hang in the hallway there. He enjoyed boating in local waters and beyond, and was a fan of all kinds of cars, including the Porsche of his dreams that he owned when he was in his 20s.
Mr. Wildner-Fox was born in Buenos Aires on Sept. 17, 1940, to Ernest M. Wildner-Fox and the former Florence de Oro Balmaceda. In 1948 the family moved to New York City, where he graduated from the High School of Music and Art before going on to the Parsons School of Design.
“He was very quiet and very unassuming, and he was extremely kind and generous,” said his sister, Florence Wildner of Montauk and Sarasota, Fla., who will be wearing one of her brother’s scarves at his funeral Mass on Aug. 27. “He was very loving, and very close to the family.”
Mr. Wildner-Fox’s wife, Ines, who was a teacher at the Montauk School and a founder of the Montauk Food Pantry, died in 2019. Their daughter, Ana Wildner-Fox of Lehigh Acres, survives. In addition to his sister, he also leaves four grandchildren, Alex, Maximilian, Emilia, and Christian.
His funeral Mass will start at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 27 at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk, with a reception to follow at the St. Therese School. Mr. Wildner-Fox was buried at Lee Memorial Park in Lehigh Acres
