Inside the home, Galli juxtaposes glamorous and bohemian elements to create an interior that intentionally incorporates clashes. It was informed by her design philosophy, which she explains is based on five core elements: Nature, eclecticism, a no-rules attitude, and a resounding love of both surrealism and disco. More specifically, she drew inspiration from architect Eileen Gray, Salvador Dalí, and “odd assemblages of items that make you question where you are.”
—Christiane Lemieux
Photo: Nina Poon
Steve Gold’s sun-drenched SoHo loft
After touring a potential client’s penthouse loft in SoHo to discuss bringing it on the market in late 2019, Steve Gold—celebrity real estate agent and star of Bravo’s *Million Dollar Listing New York—*eventually cut to the chase. “As I left, I ended up saying, ‘I’m happy to sell it for you, but I’ll also buy it from you,’” he recalls.
The would-be client, as it turned out, was New York City gallerist Sean Kelly, who’d lived in the top-floor property for over two decades. “My girlfriend Luiza and I were pregnant with our daughter, Rose, and I was living in a really cool development in Chelsea, but had been thinking about getting a bigger space,” Gold says. “I see a lot of places—all the time—and this had incredible bones and proportions, and I saw the potential.” As penthouse lofts stack up, this particular property clocking in at around 3,400 square feet has three exposures instead of the usual two, including a nearly 50-foot wall with south-facing windows overlooking the quaint cobblestones below.
–David Nash
Photo: Douglas Friedman; Styled by Mieke ten Have
A sophisticated Upper East Side town house
Mexican architect Carlos Garciavelez and New York designer David Lawrence share a Lhasa Apso named Lolo, a background in luxury fashion, and a knack for creating unexpected and opulent spaces. And although they soft-launched their New York–based design firm Carlos David three years ago, the couple managed to keep most of their projects under wraps—that is until now.
They gut-renovated their client Nancy McCormick’s fifth-floor primary suite down to the studs, moving the bedroom to the south side of the 18-foot-wide home, cloaking the bathroom in blue-quartzite panels inspired by the garden court of the Frick Collection, and devising a show-stopping dressing room—complete with a gleaming silver leaf ceiling. The stairways and corridors of the 8,500-square-foot home were changed from a “margarine yellow” to a glamorously lacquered black-and-pearl white, a nod to Coco Chanel’s original Parisian store. Garciavelez and Lawrence reimagined the dining room as a gilded forest, papering the walls with de Gournay’s handmade chinoiserie blossoms and nesting treelike candelabra atop two 1950s Maison Jansen writing desks cleverly repurposed as dining tables. “They just fit the bill in the most magical way,” Lawrence says. He explains that the desks can be separated for intimate supping or pressed together for grand entertaining—a moveable feast.
–Carrie Seim
