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NATE BERKUS + JEREMIAH BRENT NYC APT

Handsome couple Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent had what they thought was their forever home in L.A. but they missed the NYC energy. They decided to purchase a  3,400 SQ, FT;  1899 townhouse in the West Village. They are the masters at making spaces feel homier by adding texture and details. They gutted the town home aside from the MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing), added an 18th-century Italian mantel, wallpaper, vintage light fixtures + mohair rugs. Check out how beautiful their NYC family home is.

LIVINGLIVING 3COURTYARDBANQUETTEKITCHENENTRANCEHALLBEDROOMSEATINGCLOSETBATHROOMLIVING2PATIONURSERYGIRLS ROOM

 

 

 

NYC- WILL KOPELMAN’S HOME

Art Adviser- Will Kopelman enlisted architect Gil Schafer of G. P. Schafer Architect to help him realize his vision for his four- bedroom duplex on Park Avenue.  Prior to enlisting Shafer’s help to reconfigure the duplex into an expansive family zone, the formal dining room, cramped kitchen, butler’s pantry, and laundry room  were organized into smaller rooms. “It was a rabbit warren,” Schafer notes, “totally opposite to the way families live today.”

“I wanted to make the kitchen the centerpiece,” Kopelman continues. “It’s where I make the girls breakfast in the morning and cook their dinner at night. It’s where we watch our movies, and it’s where I do a lot of work, right at the dining table. I wanted a space that could handle all of that.

In the multi-family zone between living rooms there are large steel-and-glass doors that were installed to allow light into the entry way but to also keep sound travel to the rest of the apartment.

FOYERLIVING ROOMLIVING ROOM 2LIVING ROOM 5A 15-foot-long 17th-century tapestry depicting the coronation of Charlemagne that Kopelman snagged at auction in London before realizing it was too fragile to be unmounted and rolled up and so had to be crated flat for shipping and then craned in through the windows of the 10th-floor duplex.

LIVING ROOM 1A 1977 Triumph Bonneville 750 motorcycle stands like a sculpture in one corner. “When I had my children, I decided I didn’t want to ride anymore, but I didn’t want to sell it—it came off the production line the same year I was born!—so there it sits.”

KITCHEN 1KITCHENThere’s plenty of storage, including a cupboard specially designed to hold cereal boxes at kid-friendly height and a built-in wine cellar for the grown-ups. “I wanted to make the kitchen the centerpiece,” Kopelman continues. “It’s where I make the girls breakfast in the morning and cook their dinner at night. It’s where we watch our movies, and it’s where I do a lot of work, right at the dining table. I wanted a space that could handle all of that.

BEDROOMThe master bedroom is swathed in a custom hand-painted wallpaper by Gracie. Bed by RH; bedding by Ralph Lauren Home.

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STOCKHOLM- MIXES HOME

Jeanette and Husband Harald Mix own the famed Ett Hem Hotel (means at home) in Stockholm, Sweden. They also own a mansion just down the street from Ett Hem which was completed in 1916 and that the Mixes have been living in since 2002.

Ett Hem was designed by Iles Crawford.

“The process of doing the hotel made Jeanette realize that she had to circle back and look at her own place, but they only really used the kitchen and sometimes the library. Then everybody went up to the bedrooms, which were arranged like apartments. Is that fair?” says Crawford.“When spaces aren’t used, they die,” says Kirsten James, lead designer on the Mix commission.

“In the end we are, most of us, drawn to be together,” Crawford insists. Plus, she continues, “This period of Swedish architecture was the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, when the idea of domestic life was considered to be the pinnacle of culture.”

James and Crawford’s challenge: How could they retrain an imposing mansion to become an inviting home—all the while preserving the elements that made it special, such as the lacy plasterwork, noble mantels, and soigné paneling that Stockholm architect Isak Gustaf Clason conceived for the original owners, collectors Elin and Bengt Johansson, as well as his gala chandelier.

Psychotherapy helps. “We really interrogate clients,” Crawford explains. “What would she do in her study? Are the kids going to come in here? How are they going to sit? When are they going to use it? What if someone needs to step out and make a phone call?” That analytical deep dive captivated Jeanette, a trained sommelier and skilled cook. “It was an intellectual journey where I learned so much about myself,” she recalls. “Ilse knew all my values and all my morals: I had to trust her.”

That meant agreeing to Crawford’s radical suggestion to relocate the kitchen, from a distant corner of the main floor to the lovely but lonely drawing room.

What had been the kitchen is now a dayroom with a mix-master blend of furnishings—including antiques once owned by the Johanssons that Jeanette stealthily tracks down because “they belong in the house”—furry throws, and tall potted plants. The library is now darkly painted, so it beckons from the pale neighboring spaces and vice versa, and the original dining room has been transformed into Jeanette’s study. On the upper floors, the warren of bedrooms has been streamlined and equipped with marble baths. Also, Crawford cannily adds, none of the young Mixes’ bedrooms is “so palatial that they would only hang out there—and that’s intentional.”

Which, in the end, is all Jeanette Mix wanted: a house in which connections are encouraged and amplified. “Thank God our paths crossed ten years ago,” she says of Crawford. “It’s nice to be home.”

(Excerpts from Architectural Digest Article)

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