Any project involving multiple designers requires plenty of open conversation and some healthy design diplomacy, but all the more so in the case of a recent renovation to an Upper West Side town house. When a French-born couple purchased the property as a home for themselves and their school-age children, they enlisted a trifecta of AD100 firms: Elizabeth Roberts Architects (ERA), landscape designer Grace Fuller Marroquin, and decorator Leonora Hamill. “We
felt very fortunate to work with ‘three graces,’ each with their own personality,” says the husband.
Ideas bounced back and forth among the seasoned trio. “It was a real dialogue,” Hamill reflects of the collaboration. Add to that conversation the homeowners themselves (both aesthetes from art-collecting families), and you had many opinionated parties, often spanning time zones, with unique points of view. The trick became balancing Hamill’s maximalist inclinations, shared by the wife, with the pared-back sensibility favored by the husband, which was more in line with ERA’s clean-lined style. Adds Hamill: “It was putting pieces together into a puzzle they loved.”
The 1882 residence had previously been carved up into apartments and stripped of its original details. Roberts and her team, including ERA principal Josh Lekwa, endeavored to bring back the building’s Victorian spirit while brightening the interiors and tailoring proportions and flow to the needs of the family. At the same time, spaces would have to absorb any grand gestures by Hamill, a year-round visual interest, down to the moss-covered ground.
With downstairs functioning as a dedicated family domain, the parlor floor was configured for more formal entertaining. The graphic foyer (clad in an Adelphi Paper Hangings wall covering) gives way to a gracious living room, appointed with custom velvet sofas and a 19th-century Japanese screen. Hamill admits that while her impulse is usually to fill a room with high-low pieces, this project helped her “understand the value of having more space for certain curated objects.” She even came around to the client’s request for a wet bar. “It creates buzz for your guests, and we wanted something fun and sort of sexy.”
In the neighboring library, plush seating can be swapped out for round tables in the event of larger gatherings, transforming the space into an intimate salle à manger. Here Hamill had total carte blanche, blending cork walls, hand-embroidered curtains, a Louis XIV–style marble mantel, and myriad decorative splashes. “The clients said, ‘You can do your thing,’ which I promptly did,” she recalls. For the primary suite, Hamill likewise injected drama, from the patterned Jennifer Shorto fabric on the window shades and headboard to the vintage Ettore Sottsass desk.
Looking out across the sunny rooftop—lush with ivy, roses, and hydrangeas—Fuller Marroquin attributes the project’s success to a shared objective. “The sensitivity really has to be towards what the client wants,” she notes. “That’s the assignment.” As the husband affirms, “Thanks to Elizabeth, Leonora, and Grace, our home is unique while reflecting our way of living.”
This story appears in the AD100 issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.
