The layout, with its distinct rooms, holds true to the sensibility of an earlier, more gracious era.
DESIGNERS
Above: The foyer is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Early Morning Mist. The Modo Chandelier is from Roll & Hill. Blass topiary form lamps were found at AD LIB Antiques & Interiors in Hudson, NY. The handwoven striped rug is from Imports from Marrakesh. Bradley Hughes Moe mirror sports an antique gold iron frame. Left: Mara Miller and Jesse Carrier in their clients’ kitchen. The chairs are Ikea and the wallcovering is a JM Lynne vinyl found at Designtex.
They joined professional forces around the time they were married in 2002, after embarking on parallel careers at design firms including Bilhuber (him) and Sara Bengur (her). For this project, the major challenge was to artfully combine two apartments into one with a layout that flowed logically without taking on the maze-like aspect that cobbled-together apartments often do. Miller and Carrier separated the space into an adult area replete with a formal living and dining room and a master bedroom suite with adjoining office. A children’s zone, with bedrooms for the son and daughter, is down a long hall demarcated by what was once a sitting room and now serves as a family room whose pocket doors can be closed off to create a guest suite when grandparents arrive. The family room opens off of the grand entry foyer (that began life as two foyers); As an extension of the foyer – and as the first room encountered – it needed to make a sophisticated impression while maintaining its casual functionality. Miller and Carrier dressed it in masculine, contemporary raiment – square-armed furniture, strong colors, textured wallpaper, and patterned carpeting. The clients brought along heirlooms that needed to be incorporated into the overall scheme: a wood-framed settee, bookcase and pair of winged back chairs. While these heavy pieces had been out of proportion in their former home, they fit well in the high-ceilinged rooms of the Robert A. M. Stern-designed building with its pre-war scale and cleanly wrought millwork, door panels and hardware. With these elements setting the tone, the design duo layered in modern touches for balance. “To lighten the living room, everything else had to be thinner, more tailored and monochromatic,” says Miller. The palette of mostly whites and beiges, ethereal sheer drapery, and “eye candy” such as a pair of dimuntive chairs on canted tapered legs, transformed the combined living room into the “genteel, pretty room” the designers sought. The only clues that the room was formerly two are the beams and remaining supporting column. In order to prevent the double-width expanse from feeling too big, Miller and Carrier came full circle, positioning the space as two distinct seating areas divided by a leather ottoman and defined by a pair of sisal rugs. The dining area, which anchors the living room, can be used to entertain formally, but with its bookcase backdrop and impressive avenue views, doubles as a library and is mostly inhabited by laptops and homework. The chandelier, a cluster of hand-blown glass balls, is an unexpected folly set against the room’s classicism. The layout, with its distinct rooms, holds true to the sensibility of an earlier, more gracious era. “There’s a lot of opportunity for togetherness in a New York apartment,” says Miller. “The trick is not to get sick of looking at h everybody else.”
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spring 2013 the home observer
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