Tribeca Citizen | Loft Peeping: Kelly Black

Loft Peeping: Kelly Black

June 11, 2012 • Real Estate

I was excited when New York magazine’s Design Hunting spin-off issue came out, because I love most anything New York magazine does. (I want them to do a travel microsite/magazine and I want to edit it. Wouldn’t you like a reliable New York–centric source for travel advice?) Sure enough, design editor Wendy Goodman put together a superb mix of interiors—Murray Moss’s Midtown apartment, in particular—as well as a resource guide full of useful listings. If you like shelter mags, I encourage you to pick up a copy; I got mine at Barnes & Noble.

~~Alas, the content isn’t online. It may yet be, but who can wait? I fired up my crappy little scanner and captured~~ Let’s peep the eight-page feature on the 4,700-square foot Battery Park apartment of Kelly Black, her anonymous husband (he’s in finance), and their quintet of kids. My partner and I disagree about what “Battery Park” means in this context. I assume the apartment is in what I would call FiDi, in a building adjacent to the Battery Park; he says “Battery Park” includes Battery Park City.

Black & Co. considered moving out of the city, possibly to California, in order to give their kids more of a suburban upbringing, but then they decided to stay. They bought two adjacent units in their building and combined all three, “turning a second kitchen into an arts-and-crafts room, and replacing a spare bedroom with a full-size playhouse.” The design was by by Incorporated; the reno took 10 months. Two standout moments worth noting: The backsplash made by sandwiching Josef Frank fabric between glass, and the custom birch doors.

Laura Fenton wrote the text ~~(if you can make it out—my scanner really is awful~~), and Annie Schlecter took the lovely photos. Start with the third image to read the article in order. ~~The files are huge, so they take a while to load.~~ UPDATE: The article is now online.