I recently finished a complete renovation of a pre-war penthouse in Manhattan for an art collecting couple with dissimilar tastes.  One has a more modern aesthetic, while the other is more traditional (isn’t this almost always the case!).  In what I’ll call luxe-minimalism meets modern English country house eclectic, today I’m sharing photographic details of the space.

I ALWAYS say that the devil is in the details.  One of the reasons I get hired by my loyal clients is because I look at spending money in the details – in the architecture of a space and in key decorating pieces like artwork and furnishings.  While nobody has a crystal ball to see the future value of something, good bones in the architecture of a room almost always yield a higher resale price, while investing in choice decoration (art and objects) selected with the eyes of a specialist will bring joy and hopefully an increase in value as well. And don’t think this in only achieved with multi-million dollar budgets.  Even with smaller more modest budgets, I would rather spend good money in a few great things than to fill the space (some call it layering) with tchotchkes.

In the coming weeks, I will share some before and after photos of this delightful remodeling project of a pre-war penthouse in Manhattan.

image 1: period Art Deco furnishings

image 2:  pair of Mongolian 19^th century incense burners incrusted with jade and semi-precious stones; 18^th century Moghul jade

image 3: original details: 1930s steel door frames, nickel door hinges and Bakelite door knobs

image 4: 19th century Georgian rosewood breakfast table with 17^th and 18^th century silver candlesticks

image 5: 20th century abstract painting paired with a 19^th century Corinthian Roman capitol; 18^th century Chinese ivory carved vessels

image 6: 19th century portrait painting