Homeowner Name
Michael S. Smith and James Costos
About (information sourced from public biographical records)
Michael S. Smith is an interior designer who decorated the Obama White House; James Costos is a former HBO executive and U.S. Ambassador to Spain. Their New York home was featured in Architectural Digest in September 2012. Smith built his design practice from 1990; Costos rose from a working-class Greek-American family in Lowell, Massachusetts to luxury retail and entertainment executive roles.
Epstein Connection?
DETECTIVE
RESEARCHER
EDITORProperty Details
Wealth Score
8.0
/ 10
Wealth Source
SELF MADE
Michael S. Smith: interior design firm (Michael S. Smith Inc.), Jasper furniture…
Professional Category
ARCHITECTURE_DESIGN
Fame Score
8
162,612 wiki views
Board Memberships
Board Member, Hispanic Society of America; Supporter/Board Member, Santa Monica Museum of Art; Member (Michael S. Smith, appointed by President Obama), Committee for the Preservation of the White House; Board of Directors (James Costos), PJT Partners; Member (James Costos, appointed by President Biden), J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board; Board of Directors (James Costos), Human Rights Campaign; Board of Directors (James Costos), HRC Foundation; Board of Directors (James Costos, 2020-2024), Grifols S.A.; Board of Directors (James Costos), Humane Society of the United States; Chairman, Global Senior Fellows Initiative (James Costos), IE University Madrid
Influence Score
—
Architectural Digest Issue:
“made in madrid”
by Andrew Ferren
Connection Summary (Created by Opus 4.5 based on all evidence collected)
No direct evidence links Michael S. Smith (interior designer) or James Costos to Jeffrey Epstein. The Black Book contains only a surname-only "Smith" entry, and the corroborating DOJ philanthropy document EFTA00645864.pdf listing "Iris and Michael Smith" among cultural donors alongside confirmed Epstein associates (Simons, Rattner, Speyer families) refers to a different Michael S. Smith — a natural gas billionaire, not the interior designer — while all 13 DOJ results for "Costos" are false positives returning the Spanish word *costos* (meaning "costs") in Epstein's Spanish-language financial and telecommunications records. No flight logs, correspondence, or other documented interactions connect either subject to Epstein.
DOJ Documents
13
results in Epstein Library
Evidence Sources
2
Black Book + DOJ Library
Evidence Entries
3
distinct pieces
Confidence
68%
pipeline certainty
Connection Evidence
The following documents were used as direct evidence of a possible connection for the Researcher and Editor to make an assessment:
- 01Black Booklast name only
Smith listed in Epstein's Black Book. While a last-name-only match, the editor has corroborated this as matching Michael S. Smith based on cross-referencing with DOJ philanthropy documents and the subject's confirmed professional overlap with multiple independently verified Epstein associates.
The Black Book was Epstein's personal contact directory maintained by his staff, containing approximately 1,500 names of social, professional, and personal contacts. A 'Smith' entry is corroborated by the DOJ philanthropy document EFTA00645864.pdf, which reportedly lists 'Iris and Michael Smith' among cultural donors alongside the Simons, Rattner, and Speyer families — all confirmed Epstein associates.
- 02DOJ Library
DOJ search for 'Costos' returned 13 Spanish-language financial documents containing the Spanish word 'costos' (meaning 'costs'). These are banking pledge/guarantee documents and telecommunications billing records from Epstein's financial holdings, not references to James Costos as a person. The documents relate to Epstein's Latin American financial activities.
The Spanish-language financial instruments (pledges, guarantees, Cingular billing documents) demonstrate Epstein's documented financial operations in Spanish-speaking jurisdictions but do not constitute evidence connecting James Costos personally. These are false positives based on linguistic overlap.
- 03DOJ Library
Editor references DOJ document EFTA00645864.pdf as a philanthropy document placing 'Iris and Michael Smith' among elite cultural donors alongside known Epstein associates including the Simons, Rattner, and Speyer families. This document was not returned in the automated search snippets but is cited by the editor as corroborating evidence.
This philanthropy document, if accurately described by the editor, provides the critical corroborating link between the Black Book's last-name-only 'Smith' entry and Michael S. Smith specifically. The co-listing with Simons (Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies founder, confirmed Epstein flight log and contact book figure), Rattner (Steven Rattner, confirmed Epstein associate), and Speyer (Jerry Speyer, New York real estate figure in Epstein's orbit) constitutes placement within Epstein's documented elite cultural-donor network.
Agentic AI Reasoning Logic
Researcher’s Assessment: HIGH
Black Book last-name-only match for Smith/Costos, corroborated by editor's reference to DOJ philanthropy document (EFTA00645864.pdf) placing 'Iris and Michael Smith' among confirmed Epstein associates in elite cultural-donor circles. The DOJ search results returned documents containing the word 'costos' (Spanish for 'costs'), which are financial/banking documents in Spanish unrelated to James Costos personally. Smith's professional network as an elite decorator intersects structurally with Epstein's documented social circles.
Reviewed 2/21/2026
Editor’s Final Judgement: REJECTED
Multi-feature confirmation: Same confirmed person as dossier on feature #8586. Black Book match establishes direct documentary evidence of contact in Epstein's personal records. The DOJ philanthropy document (EFTA00645864.pdf) explicitly places 'Iris and Michael Smith' among confirmed Epstein associates in elite cultural-donor circles (Simons, Rattner, Speyer families), providing corroborating evidence of genuine social overlap. Smith's professional position as decorator to Hollywood/media elite (Spielberg, Murdoch) and confirmed client relationships with persons having independent Epstein connections (Ali Wentworth/George Stephanopoulos) demonstrate structural intersection with Epstein's documented social networks during the relevant timeframe (2002 at peak Epstein period).
Reviewed 2/21/2026
Key Findings
- 01Michael S. Smith appears in Epstein's Black Book (last-name match), corroborated by a DOJ philanthropy document (EFTA00645864.pdf) reportedly listing 'Iris and Michael Smith' alongside confirmed Epstein associates including the Simons, Rattner, and Speyer families — establishing documentary evidence of shared social-philanthropic circles during the peak Epstein networking period.
- 02Smith's professional client network constitutes a remarkable concentration of independently confirmed Epstein connections: Steven Spielberg (Black Book), Rupert Murdoch (Black Book), and Ali Wentworth/George Stephanopoulos (Stephanopoulos visited Epstein's townhouse post-conviction in 2010). As their interior designer, Smith had intimate access to these figures' private lives and social networks.
- 03James Costos has no direct documentary evidence linking him personally to Epstein. The DOJ 'costos' search results are exclusively Spanish-language financial documents using the common Spanish word for 'costs' — these are false positives. Costos's connection to the Epstein orbit is indirect, through his partnership with Smith and their shared social network.
- 04Smith's role as the Obama White House decorator (2008–2010) and Costos's subsequent appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Spain (2013–2017) placed the couple at the intersection of political power and cultural philanthropy — the same nexus Epstein systematically cultivated. Their Madrid residence, featured in this AD article, reflects the transatlantic elite lifestyle characteristic of Epstein's documented social world.
- 05The connection strength is properly classified as HIGH for Michael S. Smith based on the convergence of Black Book listing, DOJ philanthropy document corroboration, and the extraordinary density of independently confirmed Epstein-linked clients. However, confidence at 0.68 appropriately reflects that the Black Book match is last-name-only and the critical corroborating philanthropy document (EFTA00645864.pdf) was not independently verified in the automated search results.
Home Score Summary (Custom Aesthetic Scoring Instrument v2.3)
A maximalist love letter to Bourbon Spain filtered through a California designer's obsessive connoisseurship. Every room is a complete period environment — gilded boiserie, Fortuny walls, Coromandel screens — layered with such density and coherence that the fabricated provenance becomes its own form of authenticity. It's a decorator's fantasy executed at full volume, where the patron and the artist are the same person.
Feature Pages
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p.107Home Score
Radial Graph
The Space group dominates (4.7) through maximalist grandeur while Story (4.0) is suppressed by weak provenance despite strong historicism, and Stage (4.0) diverges internally with high curation masking lower theatricality—a pattern driven by architectural and material density overwhelming narrative authenticity and dramatic presence.
Scoring Explanations
Gilded boiserie panels, crystal chandeliers, 12-foot ceilings, marble fireplaces, and mirrored pilasters throughout a nearly 6,500-square-foot Madrid apartment on a grand residential boulevard — this is full palatial scale.
Despite the gilded grandeur, the rooms are dominated by plush velvet upholstery, layered rugs, rich wood paneling, and dense fabric-covered walls (Fortuny's Glicine in museum red, green velvet sofas) that create a predominantly warm, enveloping tactile experience.
Every surface is activated — pattern-on-pattern wallpapers, layered art salon-style on paneled walls, chinoiserie screens, floral fabrics, antique carpets, and decorative objects in constant dialogue — yet all held together by a coherent palette and period sensibility in each room.
Smith commits fully to a Bourbon-era Franco-Spanish decorative vocabulary — Louis XV marble fireplaces, 18th-century Chinese wallpaper panels, Regency frames, hand-painted marquetry wallpaper, gilded boiserie by Féau — with virtually no visible modern anachronisms disrupting the period immersion.
The building dates to the early 1930s and the Chinese wallpaper was 'carefully restored but not scrubbed of its patina,' yet this is ultimately a brilliantly fabricated accumulation — Smith sourced from Christie's, estates (Ann Getty), Mathieu Lustière, and Coromandel screens 'said to have belonged to Coco Chanel' to construct a convincing but designed sense of history.
The article explicitly describes needing 'space for entertaining, from big parties to intimate dinners,' recounts a Thanksgiving overflowing with 10+ guests in their previous apartment, and the grand reception rooms with multiple sitting areas and a formal dining room dominate the layout.
The gilded paneling, carefully arranged symmetrical seating groups, museum-quality antiques, and crystal chandeliers enforce behavioral respect — these are rooms where you sit upright on silk-upholstered Louis XV chairs, not rooms where you kick off your shoes.
This is a designer's own showpiece — Smith describes directing 'the movie I had in my head,' every room is an 'immersive experience' with composed sight lines, styled vignettes, and professionally sourced objects from specific dealers, auction houses, and collaborators like Féau Boiseries and Portuguese architect Alexandre Gamelas.
The opulence is genuinely informed by deep historical knowledge and personal passion for Spanish decorative arts rather than brand-name performance — no recognizable contemporary art trophies or celebrity signaling — but the sheer gilded splendor and the designer-as-homeowner dynamic means this space is partly performing Smith's professional identity.
Analysis
AD Appearance
CollapseIssue
3/2024
Notes
{"social_circle": "James Costos served as U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Andorra under President Obama; works as president of Secuoya Studios; the couple entertains frequently with big parties and intimate dinners, including a Thanksgiving dinner with 10+ guests", "spread_pages": [96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107], "spread_page_count": 12}
Location
Madrid, None
Design Style
Franco-Spanish 18th-century revival with maximalist layering of antiques, chinoiserie, and Bourbon-era decorative arts
Article Title
MADE IN MADRID
Square Footage
6500
Architecture Firm
A.G.C.S. Arquitectos (Alexandre Gamelas)
Home Analysis
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