“My business partner Cara and I are interested in creating simple homes in which people can live healthfully,
when the “hand-me-downs” (as he calls them) entered his life over a decade ago, he didn’t realize their value and collectability. “Megan and I were just happy to have a place to sit in our first apartment together,” says Beers. Had the designer appreciated the provenance of the pieces, he confesses the he probably would not have veiled the furniture’s charming upholstery—note the chartreuse daisy print on Mama II’s Finn Juhl “Spade” chair and the dandy stripes on Papa II’s Plycraft chair—in dreadfully boring black and tan ultrasuede slipcovers. “What can I say? I was in architecture school and taking myself way too seriously,” he says. Naturally, the 1600-square-foot Beers household, which occupies the top two light-drenched floors of a 1920s “triple-decker”, is steeped in quiet moments in the family’s history: Papa II refinishing the dining table (“It was a yearly ritual—I like knowing his hands have worked on it,” says Beers); the countless newspaper perusals hosted by the George Mulhauser-designed “Mr. Chair,” now covered in salmonhued mohair (“It’s not as sleek as the original black-tufted vinyl, but it
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