On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a gracious prewar apartment was made present with great respect to its past by designers Jesse Carrier and Mara Miller, who worked in concert with architect Gordon Kahn and contractors Fanuka Inc. to reinvent the 3,770 square foot apartment so as to serve the modern-day family needs of the homeowners, while still preserving its original spirit and details.
“It was exciting and nostalgic to walk about the original layout of this circa 1912 home and imagine how it had once been lived in,” the designers say, noting they took their cues from the client’s inspiration of “soft, spare, mostly neutral spaces. While there remains a distinction between public and private spaces, our goal was to work within a palette of colors and materials that would unite the spaces through texture and tone, while allowing us to interject a mix of furnishings, both traditional and contemporary.”
Indeed, in the library alone can be found an inspired mix of clean-lined furnishings with a variety of textural elements like the boldly patterned jute carpet, whip-stitched hide poufs and linen-wrapped coffee table top. The elements were curated to make subtle references to the clients’ collection of tribal and folk art pieces that are on display.
The marriage of past with present was at work in all stages of the transformation.
“The interior architecture is strong,” Kahn says. “We wanted to be respectful of the general prewar sensibility, but were also very conscious of how this apartment needed to work.”
Kahn explains original details were replicated and plaster mouldings remade for authenticity, the apartment’s three front rooms were opened up to provide a greater sense of space, and built-in shelving and cabinetry follows existing lines and incorporates crown moulding and soffits that stretch across doorways and negative spaces creating a clean, consistent plane.
The designers point to the design of the new built-ins in the library as being able to “create a sense of symmetry in an asymmetrical room” and note that throughout the apartment, “there is a harmony between the architecture and the décor – by design.”
“It’s a tailored and clean look that refers to traditional without attempting to replicate it exactly,” Kahn says. “It’s a modern take.”
Photography Courtesy of Eric Piasecki/Otto
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