ONE RAINY DAY in 2013, Mark Lee, then the CEO of Barneys New York, was trawling Beverly Hills real-estate sites when he happened upon a listing for a “mid-century gem owned by Dinah Shore, El Retiro Way.” “Which I interpreted as ‘the Retirement Way,’ ” he says. “I was thinking of retiring in a few years, so, I don’t know, I just thought, That’s my house.”
Lee, 56, has always been a planner: When he was 8, he signed up for a class before regular school hours to learn French, which certainly came in handy in his eventual career in fashion. He started working for Giorgio Armani in 1988, “a golden period when he dressed the world and most of Hollywood.” Then in 1999, at just 36, he became CEO…