Home on high
A screen in stained white oak with a woven leather covering separates the living room from the family room.
The family room features a purple Montauk sofa, chosen for its comfort and size.
Pale wood tones prevent the kitchen from seeming dark.
Texture and patterning are introduced through wall coverings and furniture.
The chevron-patterned rug provides a sense of fun in the family room; an urban vista out of the bedroom.
The staircase is elegant with fine bones. Throughout the house, rugs add softness and texture.
The large, recessed windows flood the living spaces with daylight and the colour palette is clean but soft. The living room sofa is covered in a natural-toned chenille.
Reflective surfaces emphasise the light sources, which is especially important in the bathroom, which has no windows.
A balance of textures and light has transformed this New York loft into a comfortable family home.
For those who spent their childhoods kicking around quarter-acre sections in suburbia, it might be difficult to imagine family life in a New York loft. According to American architect David Howell, who grew up in Hawke’s Bay, this spacious, two-levelled apartment in New York’s Flatiron District is the way you do family living in Manhattan.
“This is the New York version of a beautiful home for kids to grow up in for many years. There is a sophistication in colouring and layering. Light, sun and air are maximised.”
The development of the apartment, which belongs to a couple with four children, involved merging the two upper levels of a commercial building, which had been converted into apartments. The family lived on the lower of the two floors, and, as they grew and the upper floor became vacant, the idea was forged to grow upwards.
The couple approached DHD Architecture to help transform the two levels into one cohesive home. An internal staircase takes care of the practicality of this transformation while also providing a refined, sculptural addition to the home.
“This is a very sophisticated cantilevered stair,” says Howell. “The spindles are very elegantly tapered. It is about the fineness of the transition and not about being flamboyant.”
Howell is quick to point out that the singularity of the light source is an important aspect to the design of apartments such as this one, where there are windows on only one side. “In these large duplex lofts, it’s the light quality you’re going for and the sense of space and reflection and shadow,” he says.
In terms of layout, the bedrooms, living and family room reap the benefits of the large format-recessed windows that line the south-facing walls on both floors. The bedrooms are above and the living spaces below. The staircase and bathroom are both in the rear of the floor plate but are cleverly designed to ensure they still appear light and airy.
The staircase is lightweight in appearance and artificially lit by strip lighting up the wall, while the bathroom uses back-lit cabinetry and reflective surfaces, such as slab marble accented with pearl tiles, to bring luminescence to the room.
“When you have limited light sources, it’s so important to emphasise the light you do have. Throughout the apartment, the palette is pale with very clean lines. Also, there is a lot of interest paid to subtle sculptural elements,” says Howell.
One such feature is the screen that divides the living room from the family room. Made from stained white oak with woven leather, this screen adds texture to the living room and a sense of cosiness to the adjacent family room, which is used as an intimate TV area.
When it came to selecting furniture for the home, interior designer Steffani Aarons looked to the client’s brief, which asked for a clean, sophisticated look that was approachable and not too precise.
The living-room sofa is covered in natural-toned chenille, which allows the Nepalese hand-knotted wool and silk rug to shine. “We selected the tufted sofa in the living room because it is a transitional piece that still feels contemporary but not slick,” she says. “We then accented it with custom kidney-shaped pillows to draw in some of the blue from the rug.”
The purple Montauk sofa in the family room was chosen for its “ability to pile on the family for movie time”, says Aarons, with a dark colour chosen to hide the wear and tear that comes with four children.
In this space, the hand-knotted wool rug, with its Moroccan chevron pattern, provides a sense of casual comfort and a soft backdrop to the vibrant colour of the sofa.
Lighting is used to accent the spaces, with some standout artisan pieces, including the David Wiseman custom light with a bronze chain and faceted blown-glass pendant, which hangs above the sideboard in the kitchen, and the Lindsey Adelman Branching Bubble chandelier over the dining table.
Unlike the industrial style that might come to mind with the idea of a New York loft, this house in the sky is subtle, comfortable and sophisticated, with carefully arranged layers of texture and woven fabrics to ensure it doesn’t feel stark or precious. The dimensions are generous and the spaces are warm and light. With the ultimate urban view out the windows, this family home feels like a haven above the bustle.
