This article originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of ELLE DECOR. For more stories from our archive, subscribe to ELLE DECOR All Access.
The financier’s wife wanted French – very French. She and her husband had given up their prewar duplex on Park Avenue to move into a large, majestic apartment on Fifth Avenue. The old house had been renovated years ago in fine traditional style, but now the couple wanted something extraordinary, a home that, as the financier explained, “fitted our evolving lifestyle” – which meant lots of parties and dinners and time with their children.
The entrance hall features bronze and crystal light fixtures by Hervé Van der Straeten and custom-made benches upholstered in Prelle velvet; the silk curtains are custom embroidered. The boiseries and moldings throughout the apartment are by Féau & Cie and the floor is Versailles parquet.
But to say the 9,000-square-foot apartment needed some work was like saying Central Park, which sits right outside the home’s windows, needed a little gardening. The house, in a 1920s building where apartments rarely change hands, hadn’t been touched since the 1970s. It had dark paneling and drab finishes. And while there were huge rooms, some more than 30 feet wide, the ceilings weren’t particularly high, so creating intimacy was a challenge.
“We completely tore everything down,” says Robert Couturier. “It was a blank canvas.” Couturier, an ELLE DECOR A-List titan, is the architect and designer people call, no matter where they live, when they have virtually unlimited funds and want a home with aesthetic integrity and a sense of European history.
In the living room, the Canapé à confit is in Louis XV style and the bergères are in Louis XVI style. The cocktail table is by Mattia Bonetti, the stool is by Michel Boyer, the wall lights are Italian from the 1950s and the carpet is by Diurne.
Early on, Couturier began taking clients to Paris, where the designer grew up in an aristocratic Jewish family with “a very strong sense of culture,” he says. He wanted to show his wife “what ‘French’ really means.” To that end, he took the couple to the Musée des Arts Decoratifs and the Louvre. But the most enlightening visit was to the museum that was once the home of Moïse de Camondo. The Belle Epoque banker’s collection of 18th-century furniture and objets d’art is housed in the mansion, which he modeled in part on the Petit Trianon at Versailles. (Couturier studied at the design school that was established in the house after Camondo’s death in 1935.) “When I saw it with Robert,” the wife recalls, “I realized how you can hold on to the past and still move forward.”
Tour this spacious French apartment in Manhattan by Robert Couturier
Couturier also took them to Féau & Cie, the venerable curator and manufacturer of boiseries, the type of plaster paneling that characterizes many 18th-century interiors. That visit helped the couple decide to cover many walls of their New York apartment with elaborate wood and plaster paneling and paint it in subtle shades of white. Combined with Versailles parquet floors, this created a detailed but neutral backdrop for their lavishly upholstered and boldly colored furniture. The effect is stunning. There are many Régence and Rococo pieces, but everything is done with such a light touch that the space feels unexpectedly airy.
In the study, a Ring cocktail table by Garouste & Bonetti is surrounded by a pair of Louis XVI chairs in painted wood upholstered in silk velvet, a Felix Aublet armchair upholstered in cowhide by Edelman Leather, a 1980s floor lamp by Studio Tetrarch and a sofa upholstered in a mohair bouclé by Chapas Textiles. The Jean Royère chandelier is from the 1950s and the curtains are in silk by Clarence House.
The woman insisted that colored wall surfaces contrast with the subtle shades of the paneling. “I wanted pure colors,” she says. “No muted taupe variations.” She oversaw the pigments mixed by Féau’s artisans. Now her office is “very Dior, lots of gray and pink,” she says, and the study is a lovely Hermès orange.
Couturier took them on a second visit to Paris to buy furniture, much of it 18th-century, that would pair well with the few pieces they’d brought from their previous residence. “By that point, the ideas were already really strong and they’d gained confidence,” he says. Their new purchases, including many chairs and cabinets with pedigree, are boldly paired with modern furniture and lighting, a mix that’s Couturier’s forte. (The designer is a fan of midcentury French talent like Jacques Adnet and Jean-Michel Frank, as well as contemporary designers like Hervé Van der Straeten.) “You can’t get stuck in one era,” he says. “You have to know, deep down, what’s really good about things and what unites them in a deep way.”
In the husband’s dressing room, a custom-made sofa is upholstered in a Lee Jofa fabric and fitted with a Pratesi quilt. The cocktail table is by Hervé Van der Straeten and the 1940s-style chair, floor lamp and desk are all by Jacques Adnet.
The challenge was to create intimate and flexible spaces that flow into one another, says the woman. “We didn’t want a regular room with a few sofas around a central cocktail table. We wanted to be able to change the layout of the room to suit the different events in our lives.” The living room has several seating areas that can be moved and reconfigured, including one dominated by a Louis XV piece of furniture. Canapé à confit and a cocktail table by Mattia Bonetti. The open dining room with its two stainless steel tables by Ron Arad offers space for large dinners as well as casual gatherings.
“In many ways, the apartment is typically French, without any clichés and without sinking into the past,” says Couturier. “And that is the definition of good design.”
This story originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of ELLE DECOR. SUBSCRIBE
