When New York designer Susan Petrie was hired to transform her client’s home, one thing was certain: this project wouldn’t be cookie-cutter. “First and foremost, it was going to be original,” she explains. “We wanted to create a home with personality, sophistication, customization and upscale style.”
Mind you, the client’s residence was an apartment in Manhattan’s West Village, so Petrie was tasked with the unique challenge of injecting just enough character into a limited square footage without veering into over-the-top territory. Fortunately, Petrie used critical yet chic instincts to strike a healthy balance between “personable” and “pared back.”
Her secret weapon was a restrained use of color. Though the apartment’s living and dining areas were flushed in Backdrop’s Harvest Moon, a warm cream that can go with just about anything, she employed thoughtful accent hues to honor her client’s art collection and their “diverse” color preferences. Here, The Future Perfect’s amber swivel chair, cognac-tinged dining seats from Jayson Home, and verdant window treatments made with Brunschwig & Fils fabric and Schumacher trim, can coexist within the same four walls.
The designer took the biggest gamble with color in the kitchen, a smaller area that’s closed off from the rest of the open-concept floor plan. “The kitchen didn’t get as much natural light as the other rooms, and it just felt very vanilla when I saw it,” Petrie recalls. “I thought, let’s add a fun mood to this space and not worry that it doesn’t have a lot of light.” She coated the ceiling in an inky blue from Fine Paints of Europe and sourced lights from Coup D’Etat for a “showstopper” moment.
Meanwhile, integrated appliances and meticulous cabinetry bridged the gap between form and function. “We spent a lot of time on making sure that the microwave didn’t look so in your face and that the espresso maker was not front and center,” Petrie explains. “The client didn’t want it on the counter.”
Perhaps the biggest pops of personality came with the desk and credenza, both of which were custom-made by Ottra in Red Hook, Brooklyn. While the curved desk appealed to the client’s professional and spatial needs, the credenza was designed to be a statement piece for the living and dining room. “I wanted it to be different, but not so obnoxiously loud,” she says of the credenza. “I thought it would be interesting to do something that has a futuristic feel to it, but it doesn’t scream, ‘space age.’” Though Petrie adds the credenza was “the biggest challenge” of the project, she notes it was her favorite element “by far. It’s the star of the room.”
In a way, the credenza is almost a metaphor for the entire home: a project that took Petrie outside of her comfort zone but left a lasting impression. “I love projects that allow me to be creative and that push my boundaries into making sure that each piece that enters the client’s home is exactly what they want,” she shares. In fact, Petrie likens this project to “switching from hip-hop to opera. The fundamentals are there, but the performance demands a different kind of discipline. And that’s where growth happens.”
Photography by Reid Rolls.
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