New york is lined with canyons of skyscraper-like apartment buildings, so it’s actually somewhat surprising that this is the very first time in the 40-year history of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House that it’s being held in a high-rise construction on the town’s Upper West Side. Each of those two-story units in the showcase has 6,000 square feet of indoor living space plus a 3,000-square-foot terrace. There were a number of tributes, big and small, into the mythical decorator Albert Hadly and colour, colour everywhere. Come along as we start by opening the door to Apartment 2101.
Rikki Snyder
Bryant Keller created the foyer. He used red to brighten a place that receives little natural light. The zebra wallpaper, tiger-print cushions (both from Scalamandre) and animal accessories are a tribute to Albert Hadley, who had been a huge animal lover.
Keller imagined his client to be a young working girl from an old-money family, so she’s bits that are new and old. “It is a more traditional appearance with a contemporary sensibility,” says Keller.
The circa-1790 English Sheraton settee is from Phillip Colleck; its own frame has a floral decoration and painted putti.
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The chimpanzee and elephant stoneware sculptures are by Knud Kyhn for Royal Copenhagen and therefore are out of 1963 and 1969, respectively. They were found in LEO Designs in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.
They sit an 1820 English Regency papier-mâché tray table out of Phillip Colleck. “It has a black lacquer chinoiserie tray on a later stand. The racks are constantly made later to match the tray and make a table,” explains Keller.
Rikki Snyder
The red theme continues from the “Too Hot to Handle” kitchen by Robert Schwartz and Karen Williams of St. Charles of New York; it inspired the layout for the Whole room.
The apartment’s original kitchen was small and stripped off, so the designers opened it up into the breakfast room (see photographs after) to “improve and adopt the open lifestyle where folks combine living and cooking in one room,” says Schwartz.
The custom pot rack is from Ann-Morris, Inc..
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Other finishes in the kitchen include stainless steel, high-gloss cabinetry and a Italian marble countertop in a shade called red Levanto.
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The red idea carries over to the Flamberge Rotisserie.
Rikki Snyder
Cleaning up isn’t as much of a job when you’ve got an open, east-facing Manhattan view. The sink that is hammered-nickel is out of Native Trails.
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The breakfast room, by St. Charles of New York, includes a quartz dining table, a custom figured-walnut machine made by Karen Williams and a classic 1940s Murano glass tulip fixture. The flooring throughout the breakfast room and the kitchen are oak.
Rikki Snyder
“Girl in the Red Dress,” by photographer David Drebin, hangs on the wall opposite the kitchen’s east-facing windows. “We thought of it as another view,” says Schwartz. “It’s like she’s looking out a window.”
Rikki Snyder
Just outside the kitchen is a 3,000-square-foot terrace which was created by Gunn Landscape Architecture and Vert Gardens.
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Part of the terrace is planted with stumperies. “It is an English concept which features naturalized decayed gardens,” says designer Alec Gunn. “I thought it was an intriguing contrast with the urban environment.”
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A few steps from the main level of this terrace is the pool. A normal feature of New York City flats this isn’t.
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Back inside, Thom Filicia’s gallery, another of the show house’s tributes to Albert Hadley, flows to the dining room and living room.
All of the furniture is from the Thom Filicia Home Collection for Vanguard Furniture.
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Todd Alexander Romano’s daring use of colour is on screen in this exuberant dining room. Romano started his own company in 2000 after working in Ingrao and also “King of Chintz” designer Mario Buatta.
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Brian McCarthy, David Kleinberg and Bunny Williams (this year’s show home chair) collaborated on the living room in honour of their mentor Albert Hadley. All three designers now have their own firms, but all them worked with Hadley in Parish Hadley. The Le Corbusier tapestry over the couch is from the Jane Kahan Gallery.
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Still another view of the living room. The designers mixed antiques with 20th-century furniture and utilized a number of works of contemporary art to draw the eye up toward the 18-foot ceilings.
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Designer Raji Radhakrishnan imagined that this home office belonged on the head curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Venetian-plaster walls provide “richness and finesse,” says Radhakrishnan.
“And I wanted to have something observable in each corner, each a little vignette of its own, however they had to work together,” he adds.
Desk: Ralph Lauren Home; desk seat and Jules Leleu armchair: Maison Gerard; bookcase: Sebastian Ezzaruiz Tilt, Cristina Grajales
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The photograph with this particular mural of a chapel in Versailles was shot by Radhakrishnan. “Photo murals are one of my signatures,” she states. “I shot this picture several years back but stored it so that it could be a part of my very first Kips Bay Show House room.” The red Zig Zag Table is the same as one which has been in Albert Hadley’s home.
Mantel: Chesney’s; table: Zig Zag, LeavittWeaver; carpeting: F. J. Hakimian
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A George VII composing table from Kentshire takes center stage in David Scott’s “Gentleman’s Research” and sits on an indigo zebra silk rug from Carini Lang. The bronze and glass shelving unit by Paul Evans, a 20th-century artist and furniture designer, is from Todd Merrill. The English menswear firm Holland and Sherry was utilized as the source for all the textiles.
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Jamie Drake’s library celebrates “New York, urbanism, and novels,” based on his description. A lacquered frame surrounds an upholstered panel with a painting by Andy Harper. The custom chairs and sofas “were motivated by a Maison Jansen layout from the 1940s.” (Maison Jansen has been a Parisian design company founded in 1880 by Dutch-born Jean-Henri Jansen.)
All the fabrics and wall coverings are by Donghia.
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Upstairs the “Sleeping Beauty Nursery,” by Zoya Bograd, was motivated by a Swedish baroness. “It has a contemporary interior with traditional furniture,” Bograd states. “The tufting on the mattress has a 1920s feel.”
Bograd made All the Gustavian-style furniture.
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“I always incorporate a little Murano glass to each room,” Bograd says of this mirror. “I glazed the walls to give them some shimmer, added the stencil, then I bedazzled them. There are over 500 beads in the room. I began with some but couldn’t help myself.”
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Lynne Scalo’s “After the Party Retreat” has lacquered white walls plus a daybed upholstered in a metallic weave. She collaborated with well-known photographer Norman Seeff and featured two of his iconic images, one of Andy Warhol and the other of Steve Jobs.
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Inside this upstairs, Alexa Hampton of Mark Hampton played the contemporary architecture and urban perspectives. Her company’s press release notes that “it supplied that the yin to our yang and our bedroom is a study in contrasts.” The female nature of the canopy is “supplied its transparency” with manly accessories.
The layout is also a nod to Hampton’s favorite Kips Bay room by her father, celebrated designer Mark Hampton: a chocolate-brown library with upholstery.
The mattress and curtains were custom created by Anthony Lawrence-Belfair Draperies.
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The Jansen desk in Hampton’s bedroom is from Florian Papp. The display in the corner can also be from Florian Papp, and the desk chair is from Newel Antiques.
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The second-floor analysis was created by Brian del Toro, who utilized a painted finish to deliver architecture to the room. “I was motivated by the fashion designer Charles James,” says del Toro. “He used colour in extraordinary ways — all sorts of gem tones one against the other.”
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The photograph on the side table is of del Toro’s father. “That is my very first show home, so it’s my way of becoming disoriented,” he states. The room has a mix of traditional and midcentury furniture. The parchment chairs are from the 1960s.
See more amazing rooms from the event:
Rooms Delight at 2012 Kips Bay Decorator Show House