It screams summer while instantly transporting you to a tropical locale, but there’s a great debate among design enthusiasts about who designed the famous banana leaf wallpaper. Was it Dorthey Draper or Don Loper? Don Loper is often mistakenly credited as the designer because of his use of the iconic paper in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Here are the facts.

In 1941, Lucile Chatain, the daughter of Clifton W. Stockwell, who started the wallpaper and textile company CW Stockwell, returned from a vacation in the South Pacific with her husband Remy Chatain. Lucile had studied architecture and interior design at Parsons, and she had a great eye. She approached her friend and neighbor, noted illustrator Albert Stockdale, to create a tropical print representing her experience in the jungle. The result was Martinique®, a handprinted large botanical pattern installed like a mural in the showroom. Around the same time, interior and Hollywood costume designer Don Loper was tasked by the Beverly Hills Hotel to help with its redesign. When Loper visited the CW Stockwell showroom and saw the bold banana leaf wallpaper, he knew it belonged in the hotel—it was a perfect complement to the iconic pink facade. It’s believed that there are about five miles of banana leaf wallpaper and fabric throughout the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The print’s fame continued to grow. In 1984, restaurateur Brian McNally used Martinique® in his new Manhattan hot spot, Indochine, frequented by celebrities like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Madonna. It was also used in the beloved sitcom Golden Girls from the 1980s: party girl character Blanche Devereaux’s bedroom was covered in the Martinique® banana leaf print wallpaper, and she even had a matching bedspread. In 2019, after the youngest Chatain’s death, West Elm and Serena and Lily veteran Katy Polsby (who also happened to be a family friend of the Chatains) took over as CEO and owner of CW Stockwell. “Our iconic Martinique® pattern is singular and sought after because it has universal appeal for its boldness, its whimsy, and its transportive spirit,” Polsby told Veranda magazine in 2021. “It is also one of the world’s most imitated patterns, largely due to the fact that—until now—it has not been made widely accessible in its authentic form.”

There’s no denying that the pattern looks very similar to Brazilliance by Dorothy Draper. Many believe Martinque® is darker in color and has a bolder design, while Draper’s is lighter and preppier. The defining difference, though, is that Draper’s paper includes clusters of grapes instead of the bananas used in Martinique®.