ONE LOVE

Conceived as a secondary residence for clients whose frequent houseguests hail from the music and entertainment world, this contemporary home called for something decidedly less predictable than the architecture we inherited. Working closely with our art-aficionado clients, we set out to create interiors that felt sophisticated yet playful, comfortable without being conventional, and reflective of the creative personalities who would ultimately inhabit them.

Art and music provided our common thread. Contemporary paintings, photography and commissioned works referencing rock-and-roll, reggae, country and hip-hop were layered throughout the house, while flashes of crimson red and more masculine gestures established a recurring visual rhythm. Works by Tony Mose of Esom Galleries, Ken Tate and Adrien Broom joined the clients’ existing collection, with Hunt Slonem’s one-of-a-kind red glass “broach” rabbit sculpture presiding over the entry foyer—a fitting introduction to a house that never takes itself too seriously.

The kitchen presented our first opportunity to give the existing architecture a stronger point of view. Despite its generous footprint, an absence of an island left a sizable void at its center. We filled it with a bespoke island fabricated from welded steel, powder-coated dark bronze and topped with an oversized slab of honed black granite. Rustic floating shelves flanking the sink were replaced with custom bronze-painted steel cabinetry fitted with reeded-glass doors, allowing natural light to filter through while softly obscuring the everyday dishware within.

That darker material vocabulary continues into the adjoining living room, where chalky white-painted brick was transformed with high-gloss dark bronze lacquer. Designed foremost as a place for guests to gather, watch television and listen to music, the room pairs generously scaled modern sofas with black leather lounge chairs. On the dominant wall, an oversized television is flanked by a pair of theatrically scaled crimson velvet banquettes, introducing symmetry and a sense of architecture to an otherwise featureless space.

The primary bedroom takes a moodier turn. Charcoal walls and millwork establish a masculine envelope, softened by generous layers of grey flannel drapery over gauzy Roman shades. Rather than treating the clients’ existing art collection as an afterthought, we assembled a salon-style gallery wall from works collected over time, giving the room a more personal, layered quality.

Upstairs, the celebration of music becomes more literal—and considerably more playful. A collection of vintage album covers, individually framed in acrylic, stretches the length of a guest-room wall. A pair of theatrically scaled tufted headboards is set against lacquered café-au-lait walls, giving the room an exaggerated sense of scale befitting its musical backdrop.

The dining room provided perhaps our most theatrical opportunity. A monumental diptych commands one wall, while elsewhere a pair of “floating” mirrors is layered directly over curtain panels. The unconventional composition disguises and softens the home’s otherwise ordinary commercial-grade steel windows while simultaneously giving them dimension, structure and purpose.

Throughout the house, we resisted allowing any single theme—music, art, masculinity or color—to take over. Instead, each became another layer in an interior intended to feel collected rather than overly composed. Serious artwork lives comfortably alongside moments of humor; dark, lacquered surfaces are relieved by soft textiles; and modern furnishings coexist with theatrical gestures that occasionally push scale and proportion beyond the expected.

The result is a house designed as much for entertaining as for retreat—sophisticated but never precious, masculine without being austere, and filled with enough personality to hold its own against the colorful cast of characters who pass through its doors. Familiar and unexpected all at once, “One Love” ultimately became less about a particular design style than the shared pleasures of art, music and good company.