The design of #24 Thompson in Manhattan's Soho This is a description of my work on a Manhattan townhouse. It was a long project carried out with generous resources. In both respects it was atypical for me. The aesthetic choices mirrored the clients' taste. It was a satisfying project for me because of the resources available, the scope of the project and the notable collaborative dimension of what was accomplished over almost three years. A little more than a decade ago, a couple who were later the subjects of the cable TV series Nine by Design built and did the interior of a six-story townhouse near Canal Street in Manhattan's Soho. In 2006 Jennifer and Zydrunas Ilgauskas bought the property. They brought in me and I in turn led Cleveland Heights contractor David McDowell and his team of skilled craftsmen into the project. They discovered major structural issues, including a severely leaking terrace roof and unfortunately configured plumbing and electrical systems. McDowell's team took more a year to accomplish extensive structural repair/renovation and the installation of new mechanicals. The real estate listing had said "super stylish" home. Up to a point the statement is undeniable. When the clients took possession, the narrow and deep building contained: an enormous round window from a French church and another salvaged from Hungary; a variety of elements - light fixtures, a sink, a cabinet, a train station clock, shutters - from Paris; a wrought iron balcony from Peru; stained glass windows from Argentina; and tile and cast iron posts from Central Park West. The integration of antique and international elements made the building seem older than its years and most definitely enhanced its visual interest. This was not a cookie-cutter modern building lacking "soul" or personality. Nonetheless, the architectural and design elements of #24 Thompson had to a great extent been integrated without sufficient attention to quality of workmanship. Moreover, splendid European windows and light fixtures coexisted with design that would have seemed bad taste in a college student's apartment. I sat in the space for long hours before starting to draw and beginning room plans. The resulting interior renovation also took more than a year and required many trips to Manhattan to continue the design and implementation process. The 16'x60' dimensions of the floors of the house presented design challenges. Some parts of the residence underwent greater change than others. On the second floor, the kitchen was aesthetically refined and functionally reorganized. A re-crafted and expanded 1930s table that began its functional life in the dining room of the client's grandmother transformed the dining area into an energy center. Carefully chosen furniture and a very large television for the sitting area up front made that portion a handsome, appealing and altogether comfortable people magnet. The second floor had pretty good bones, though, and didn't require the serious surgery other spaces, like three, needed. Two was transformed in the design/renovation process, but the changes weren't as profound or structurally grounded as on three. Before the renovation, the third floor was blighted in its downtown-Grant Street-southern portion by a confusing rabbit-warren of four small rooms. On one of my early trips I sat on a ledge and sketched a vision of how four could become one. I put my head together with David's and there was a plan. It would ultimately include an acute understanding of what can and can't be done with postage-stamp size glass tile, the watchmaker's intricacy evident in the master carpentry of artisan Coby's 30-foot closet, and ingenious resource hunting by David and me. Many who have seen it have said that the final third-floor product is a dazzle. The third-floor bath is dramatic. Its design may well be more extravagant than what clients preferring a more understated approach would choose. Nevertheless, the unabashedly opulent room is a reflection of the clients' vision and choices. The spectacular shower is roughly twelve feet high, twelve feet wide and six feet deep; it has no door and is simply a portion of the room, with the floor being canted to facilitate draining. There are enormous rain heads for a 5'4" wife and a 7'3" husband; and other individually controlled streaming and hand-held sources, all within the deep flowing wave of the intricately tiled shower backsplash. The approximately one centimeter square Sicis glass tiles were custom colored -black, grey, platinum, clear, white - in Italy to a scheme I designed. The platinum segments possess platinum metal. The tiles came on a 12x12-tile mesh unit. However, the complexity of the wave and the large expanse of the shower area required tile installation work of a very high order of craftsmanship. In addition to that shower, there are an 84-inch Jacuzzi tub framed in marble; on the floor a sea of Calcutta gold marble in 1 3/4 inch squares for a mosaic effect; a large red Murano glass chandelier overhead and a mirror covering an entire wall opposite the open shower. Putting it all together involved adjustment and some struggle. The single pedestal double bowl sink from France was original, but it required a new, unusual 360º faucet, and it was also too short for the male client. I found the faucet, but the height solution was to have crafted an eight-inch cast iron insert which was powder-coated with the whole, producing a gleaming like new porcelain unit. Similarly, the knee wall serving as a screen for the commode had to be made eight feet high because of the stature of the husband. The wall was created as an intricate cake of Sicis glass tiles and layers of that same Calcutta marble. Stepping out of the elegant spa, one moves past the stair and elevator entrance, skirting the satinwood closet on the left. On the floor is a green-based Diane von Furstenberg designed, 13.5 foot thick silk rug, Climbing Leopards. The door to the bedroom is a 10-foot tiger oak portal David and I picked up from the Demolition Depot in Harlem on a day when a nearby building collapsed and we were put in mind of the necessity of insuring that #24 was structurally sound. The client wanted the bedroom to call to mind the Central Park West Ritz Carlton, where she and her husband celebrated their engagement. At that point, I hadn't seen that Ritz, but I had a sense of the flowing British style window treatment likely to be central to the design. My coworker Diane made the coverlet of Donghia's Mums the Word pattern as well as the shams and dust ruffle. The master room's walls are Benjamin Moore grey-territory Thunder, which works harmoniously with the closet stain grounded in B&M's Secret. The window is cloaked in an Asia-conjuring pattern by Beacon Hill ahead of 100 percent wool crepe Austrian shades. One of the outstanding fixtures of the original space was unusual steel cornices; however, to support a window treatment the cornices needed to be framed by a an artfully crafted and faux-finished wood cornice box The oversize mattress is, appropriately a fusion of a king and a queen and it sits on a custom steel frame. The nine-foot headboard is done in a grey taupe Donghia upholstery fabric which interacts beautifully with Mums the Word. At the foot of the bed is another large, 6'x9' grey taupe silk rug in an intricate paisley pattern from London's The Rug Company. Descending from three to one, you step into the carpenter's walnut elevator compartment and come down to street level. Turning right, there is a one-car garage and to the left of that the vestibule, still wearing its original Grand Central Station terra cotta tiles. The doors into the main portion of one were beautifully refinished. One opens with Schroeder Shaded Green on the vestibule walls. It's intended to be a note of spring as you come in from the concrete world outside. There is a good deal of green, the client's favorite hue, in the house and the house's color composition is a kind of circle, with the strong Janus et Cie lime patio furniture on the terrace echoing the first floor's Shaded Green. Though there is complexity on the walls, a little Venetian plaster here, hand-painted paper from England there, as well as varieties of tile and marble, the base note of the entire residence's color scheme is Wheat Dust by Schroeder Paints. With access to stairs, elevator, the outside, the garage, and its own space, the first floor is a transit point serving multiple functions. It's where you leave something off after coming in or pick something up to prepare for the outside. The cubbies provide storage and an antique gate was refashioned by a Cleveland metal worker to be the family coat hanger. One's two black Swarovski chandeliers are from the House of Lights in Mayfield Heights, as is the great majority of #24's lighting. The elegant chandeliers are in playful tension with the ceiling's large exposed duct pipes. There are original but refinished cubbies followed by a sitting area with: a Donghia chair in a zebra pattern; the client's grandmother's chair, also reupholstered in Donghia; and a handsome wing chair from Mitchell Sotka of Rocky River. Across but diagonal to the sitting area is what the female client refers to as "the most expensive powder room in New York." Connecting with the plumbing and allowing for a proper flanking office left only a narrow space. David and the gang carefully engineered the room, also ingeniously shoehorning in seven-inch wide floor to ceiling shelves. I put up a wall of mirror to make the room look wider and designed a skinny vanity top that's more length than width. I also designed a flowing "river sink" of hand-hammered copper under-mounted in granite. The sink was fabricated with a slant that didn't allow it to drain properly, so it had to be redone. The room's chocolate tile running to 48 inches high has a 14K gold overlay and the complimentary turquoise and brown wallpaper above is hand-painted covering from the UK. The can-light above the commode drips a double row of Swarovski crystals Next to the powder room is the office space, with computer and all necessary communication tools. The office features a large, flowing Deco style white wood desk crafted by the carpenter. The second floor has already been touched on, but a few more details: as noted, a master woodworker artfully expanded the client's grandmother's small dining table into a 10-foot beauty; a black glass top was commissioned to protect the wood. Eight handsome Donghia fabric covered chairs are around the table. A long repurposed bar from upstate New York extends from just beyond the kitchen section of the second floor on up to the sitting area up front. In that front section, there is, from the Rug Company, a centerpiece 6'x9' custom rug in chocolate black, lime and camel. The custom couch in a camel shade of crushed velvet chenille is 120" long and 48" wide, also the width of the lounge chair matching the couch. The third chair in a custom green leather looks like the bird after which it is named, the egret. The 56-inch media screen is state-of-the-art and is controlled by remote through an electronic eye in the end piece of the bar-derived cabinetry. The front windows are three sets of French doors, which open onto a narrow balcony. The silk taffeta drapes in copper and brown slide on a long pole silicon-coated to enable its easy slide. At the back in the kitchen area, a major deficiency was a shortage of cupboards. I remedied that by finding a large, antique industrial glass cabinet with shelves behind sliding doors, and next to it I positioned a shelf with wire mesh baskets from an old swimming pool locker room to serve as storage. For brevity's sake, I will make very short work of the two upper stories. The fourth floor is the children's area. Up front on Thompson there is a playroom with furniture by Ikea; a rolled steel sliding door storage cabinet, from Michael Rolf, the source of the storage unit on two; and a murphy bed to accommodate kids staying over. The bathroom has access from the play/guest bed front of the house, as well as from the large bedroom in the rear. In that portion of the floor, there are two refinished dressers that belonged the client's grandmother ,a poster bed in bright blue automotive paint and a metal twin bed. The bright white bathroom with two sinks and a vanity crafted by carpenter Coby has a floor with white pebbles inset in green acrylic, the effect being marshmallows in lime green Jell-O. In the context of the entire residence, Four is a relatively simple floor, but it reflects the consistent attention to color and design evident throughout the house. The focus in these words has only been upon a small part of my designer's work over three years. Throughout the house, there are 18 different fabrics from Donghia; a treasure of interesting bedding, pillows and window treatments: and a range of art, including, on the stairs: natural fig bark between sheets of Plexiglas. At the front on five is a family room with furniture by Arhaus and a lovely silk rug from ABC Carpet and Home. There is another large TV ; a carved Asian chest; and one of those spectacular, original and now soundproofed windows on the Thompson St. side. The laundry room section in the middle of the floor includes an ingenious walnut storage unit by Coby. At the rear is a wonderful steam shower room of which any athlete - or civilian - would be envious. Next to that is a long, skinny guest room with a hand embroidered headboard and grass green wall covering with the look of crumpled silk from France. C'est tout. Pretty much. The terrace we've touched upon. Landscaping is still to come. The house is still being tweaked. McDowell and a couple of workers are there as this is being written in November. But the preceding is basically the story.
 2nd floor kitchen
 3rd floor master bath
 1st floor entry
 1st floor  3rd floor master bedroom  2nd floor sitting area  2nd floor dining  3rd floor bath
4th floor bath [Note: the house at #24 Thompson has not been professionally or well photographed] |