Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i ELLE DECOR

When I decided last year to embark on gut-renovating a Brooklyn apartment for my growing family, the first thing I thought about was the kitchen. I love to cook, and I love to host, and I wanted something different from the one that had been installed in our current place, of which a very chic friend of mine (French, naturally) once remarked “how American” it looked. There is, of course, no one kind of “American” kitchen, but I took her comment to mean that this one—with its generic Shaker cabinets and their decorative door pulls—looked as though it could have belonged on the set of a 1990s sitcom. Space in any Brooklyn apartment is precious, and mine is no different. I wanted my new kitchen to be economical and low-fuss…

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.” Those are the words Tom Joyner, the retired longtime syndicated radio show host, repeated over and over during his first walk-through with the designer of his revamped seaside apartment in Sunny Isles Beach, part of the Miami metropolitan area. When Joyner bought the 5,000-square-foot, three-bedroom residence, located on a midlevel floor of the 60-story Porsche Design Tower, a few years ago, he was attracted by the panoramic views, the large balcony, and the car elevator that enables him to park his Rolls-Royce Cullinan in an attached garage. Not to mention the fact that the building has room service. “You can order an espresso martini in the morning or the evening,” he says. “What’s not to like?” But the apartment’s decor, conservatively styled in wall-to-wall neutrals, was…

When one Beverly Hills couple found out that their beloved neighbor had sadly passed away, they went over with condolences for her family—and an offer. “How do you make the transition from ‘Sorry for your loss’ to ‘Can I make a bid?’” the husband wondered at the time. They had good intentions. Not only did the couple want to ward off a real estate developer who was putting up soulless spec houses in the area, but they also wanted to turn the home into a place to accommodate their aging parents. The neighbor’s children were amenable to the idea, and a deal was struck. The problem was, neither of the couple’s parents cared to move in. “It turned out, for us,” says the wife, who works in talent representation, “if…

LIKE MANY NEW YORKERS, CHRISTINE AND JOHN GACHOT HAVE an unwavering love for the Metropolitan Opera. The ELLE DECOR A-List designers have passed through the building’s glass doors many times to see canonical operas like The Barber of Seville; their son Boris walked past the cascading fountains in the plaza outside every day on his way to performing arts classes at nearby Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. So when ELLE DECOR called on the duo to redesign the Met Opera Patron Lounge, formerly known as the Eleanor Belmont Room, the answer from the Gachots was a resounding and enthusiastic yes. When the opera house, designed by Wallace K. Harrison, opened in 1966, the legendary decorator Billy Baldwin was brought in to design the lounge. The space already had drama, with…

Ask a Houstonian, “Do you know River Oaks?” and they’ll reply: “Ch ristmas lights.” They’ll mention driving 75 minutes in a beat-up minivan and stopping for Whataburger en route to see the glittering display the neighborhood is so famous for that Google Maps has declared it a “tourist attraction.” The minivan will slowly roll past an eclectic mix of opulent and historic homes that unfurl along tree-lined streets—a French château here, a stately American Colonial there, a Tudor estate with a corset of half-timbering just behind that fence. They comply with River Oaks’ 100-year-old deed restrictions that stipulate a handful of revival architectural styles. Some bend the rules, however, stretching their homes to the edges of the property lines like potbellies straining over big belt buckles. On a quieter street…

The designers Heide Hendricks and Rafe Churchill are known for a visual language that pulls the past into the present. Call it Shaker with a twist. Based in Connecticut’s rural Litchfield County, their ELLE DECOR A-List firm, Hendricks Churchill, is a go-to for renovations of period architecture—updated country farmhouses, prewar city apartments, 19th-century brownstones—infusing them with a traditionalism that works in a contemporary context. But to judge from their latest project, the duo—who are a married couple—aren’t afraid of jumping out of the history books and several stories off the ground. When a young family approached them to decorate their apartment in a new-build high-rise on New York’s Upper East Side, all they could think of was the modernist architecture in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. “It was a space that…

Never underestimate the power of a niche. This is one lesson you learn upon exploring this coolly elegant Upper East Side residence with interior design and architecture by the firm of Nannette Brown. Take the vestibule, where a semicircular recessed seating area sheathed floor to ceiling in zellige tile offers a striking perch for changing shoes. Or the primary bedroom, where a cashmere-upholstered daybed built into an alcove serves as an inviting spot for lounging. And don’t forget the woodpaneled library, where a snug little wall niche makes the perfect display shelf for a piece of sculpture. Everywhere you look, functional nooks and recesses abound. “All space is valuable—especially so in New York City, where one never wants to waste an inch,” says Brown. But it wasn’t simply the economics…

During the fraught first year of the Covid pandemic, the Milan apartment of Emiliano Salci, half of the ELLE DECOR A-List firm Dimorestudio, appeared on the cover of our November 2020 issue. Following an amicable split from his partner, Britt Moran, Salci had to contemplate what a home of his own could look like. He meticulously pieced elements together using what was at hand—namely, a large collection of vintage furniture and lush textiles he and Moran had designed. Here, in his new living room, a well-loved Vico Magistretti sofa sits by a Giulio Zappa bookcase and a marble cocktail table. Like the cluster of Enrico Castellani candlesticks in the right corner, the rest of Salci’s home is peppered with pieces of personal ephemera and nostalgic gestures, because, as the designer…