Tribeca Citizen | Loft Peeping: Art-Loving Bachelor

Loft Peeping: Art-Loving Bachelor

November 13, 2012 • Real Estate

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The September issue of Interior Design featured an apartment in “a former warehouse from 1930” (pretty clearly 60 Beach—sorry, but if other buildings are visible in the photos I have no choice).

The owner is an art-loving bachelor who hired Sara Story Design and Chicago-based Dirk Denison Architects to gut the place (“like a squatter’s apartment, a complete warren,” in Denison’s words). The developer had planned on it being a three-bedroom, but the owner instead went for a master suite with a den. “The latter can be made private for guests with the help of two perpendicular sliding doors suspended from factory-style ceiling tracks. In keeping with the industrial feel, Story clad one of the doors in patinated zinc.”

The space isn’t exactly window central, the design team bounced around whatever light they could. They “added enamel-painted panels below” the windows, painted the columns “high-gloss black instead of white,” and so on. The decor “had to be […] as contemporary as the bachelor’s taste in painting and photography [and] flexible enough, however, to make an easy transition to a family home somewhere down the line.” So Story went with “a neutral palette with so much contrast and variety as to seem almost colorful.”

Also of note:
••• In the dining room: “A chandelier with arms fashioned by embedding flexible LED strips in translucent resin.”
••• ” Two Italian 1970’s lounge chairs covered in white leather are extremely seductive. ‘Once you get into them,’ Story says, ‘you don’t ever get out.'”
••• “The office niche hidden in the den [is wallpapered] with a lighthearted pattern she describes as’doodles of people’s faces.'”
••• “In the powder room, […] claret-painted shelves display bottles labeled with phrases along the lines of ‘Do not operate heavy equipment.'” They were Story’s idea, inspired by Damien Hirst artworks and “the idea that guests are always snooping in their hosts’ medicine cabinets.” So true! One time I thought I was opening someone’s medicine cabinet, when in reality I was pulling a mirror off the wall.

The text is by Michael Lassell. The photos are by Eric Laignel. And the full article (including more on where the furniture is from and who did the artwork) is here.