Frequently mentioned contenders are Adam Moss of New York magazine, Janice Min of The Hollywood Reporter and Joanna Coles of Hearst Magazines. “There will be some great candidates both inside and outside the company,” said Steven O. Newhouse, a top executive at Vanity Fair’s parent company, Advance Publications. He added, “We’re in no rush.”

Mr. Carter said he had an idea for who might succeed him — he would not name names — and that he would offer suggestions to Vanity Fair’s publisher, Condé Nast. “I want to make it really easy for the next person,” he said. “I care about this magazine. I don’t want it to go anywhere other than up.”

His post-Vanity Fair plans involve a six-month “garden leave” (Mr. Carter is fond of Britishisms) and a rented home in Provence. He has “the rough architecture” of a future project in mind, perhaps involving new forms of storytelling, but he demurred on the details. “I’m not a big announcer,” Mr. Carter said, tortoiseshell glasses in hand. “Best to fail quietly at the beginning of something rather than make grand pronouncements.”

From a spacious corner office, amid cigarette smoke and midcentury furniture, Mr. Carter nurtured the musings of Christopher Hitchens, the true-crime yarns of Dominick Dunne, the portraiture of Annie Leibovitz and the wit of Fran Lebowitz and James Wolcott, to name a few of the artists and writers in the Vanity Fair stable.

One Carter innovation, the Vanity Fair Oscar party, remains the entertainment world’s most exclusive soiree, attracting a sea of boldface names to an Old Hollywood-style bacchanalia. Even drab Washington fell under his sway: His annual bash after the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner became the capital’s hottest ticket.

In his townhouse on Wednesday, however, Mr. Carter opted for self-effacement. “I’m very uncomfortable talking about myself like this,” he said at one point. Asked whether he would still attend the magazine’s Oscar party, Mr. Carter shook his head. “You don’t really need me there,” he said. “I’m like a glorified maître d’.”