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.
A 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.
A 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.”
There’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.
The master bedroom is swathed in a custom hand-painted wallpaper by Gracie. Bed by RH; bedding by Ralph Lauren Home.
