INTERIORS PORTFOLIO
featured project
MODERN BEACH HOUSE
This modernist beach compound on seven
secluded acres marks the latest chapter in an ongoing collaboration with a longtime client,
whose family had outgrown the space of their previous seaside residence. The project involved the complete and fully detailed new creation of multiple independent structures including a large, new main house. The interiors marry easygoing comfort and honest, understated craftsmanship with elevated curating, as the family’s collection of significant European and American modern master furniture
and fine art matures and mixes with simpler finds and furnishings. In a departure from more expected, summer watercolor palettes, a layering of natural modern materials and soft, weathered finishes brings the meditative surrounding woodlands and sea meadows into a rich indoor-outdoor relationship.
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COUNTRY MARKET
FIFTH AVENUE
57th STREET
SOHO DUPLEX LOFT
TRIBECA LOFT
KIPS BAY
THE ACADEMY
LITCHFIELD
WEST VILLAGE LOFT
CHELSEA TOWNHOUSE
NYC PENTHOUSE
57th STREET TODAY
BEACH HOUSE
BROOKHAVEN
SOHO ON BROADWAY
CONNECTICUT
HOTEL AND GYM
BRIDGEHAMPTON
SAGAPONACK
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COUNTRY MARKET
Reviving the neighborhood pleasures of the general store, the Copper Beech market in the village of Bellport, Long Island, repurposes a 1930s building that once held the town’s grocery store. Meticulous renovations are ongoing to restore and restructure the original architectural detail of the building. The design of the space invokes vintage artists’ studios, Northern California indoor-outdoor living, and the seaside elegance of the south of France, to create an easy,loft-like emporium. Curated home furnishings, antiques, collectibles, art, seasonal staples, and prepared food offer quality choices for locals and weekend visitors to provision their households. Founded by Thomas O’Brien and Dan Fink, Copper Beech represents a new home brand that will evolve with future stores in New York and elsewhere.
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MODERN BEACH HOUSE
This modernist beach compound on seven
secluded acres marks the latest chapter in an ongoing collaboration with a longtime client,
whose family had outgrown the space of their previous seaside residence. The project involved the complete and fully detailed new creation of multiple independent structures including a large, new main house. The interiors marry easygoing comfort and honest, understated craftsmanship with elevated curating, as the family’s collection of significant European and American modern master furniture
and fine art matures and mixes with simpler finds and furnishings. In a departure from more expected, summer watercolor palettes, a layering of natural modern materials and soft, weathered finishes brings the meditative surrounding woodlands and sea meadows into a rich indoor-outdoor relationship. -
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FIFTH AVENUE
This formal prewar, floor-through apartment
on Fifth Avenue, across from the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, began with meticulous restora-
tion and elaborately detailed new architecture.
Interiors continued on with the creation of a
collection of art, antiques, and furnishings that
is both a backdrop for sophisticated entertaining
and a genuine world for family life. The collection
is modern to live with, but is not only modern in
origin: selections range from antiquities to bold
twentieth-century master photography. Many
pieces of custom-designed furniture were hand-
crafted for the residence in the mode of antique
classical pieces. A palette of cool, restful greys
and blues lends modern understatement to
the iconic New York location. -
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57th STREET
This is the first and only apartment that I’ve owned
in New York City, and I live here still today. At the
time of this first renovation when I bought the
apartment, I wanted a pale, spare retreat in the
peacefulness of the space, illuminated by its
chapel-like, towering pair of 1930s metal casement
windows. I chose the refreshing bareness of empty
walls, few but large, good pieces of furniture, and
antique modern colors from parchment and light
grey to rich indigo and soft green. The tiny galley
kitchen was the major redesign, using classic
1920s details that I return to in many other
projects: slender, tall, unpaneled and painted
cabinetry, pocket doors, mirrored backsplashes,
marble counters, and un-patterned,
sparkling mosaic floors. -
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SOHO DUPLEX LOFT
Deciding between a move uptown or staying
downtown, this young family chose to commit
to a raw duplex penthouse loft in central Soho.
The aim of the project was to design a more formal
European townhouse inside the huge scale of the
loft, complete with four large terraces, a significant
kitchen, and a social, flexible dining room. All-new
architecture based in classical Georgia detail
provided a sense of history. The assembly
of antique furniture represented a new level of
collecting for the client, while remaining quite
pristine and edited. The hallmark pale blue and
pearlescent, golden palette was inspired
by an Alfred Hitchcock movie, giving
the interior its feminine, cinematic feel. -
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TRIBECA LOFT
The intensive restoration and furnishing of this
previously converted 19th century mercantile club
took place around the same time as the Soho
Duplex Loft. It represents another way of working
with architecture beyond the modern loft language,
to reflect a more historical interior. Principle
construction was assigned to the perimeter of the
loft, to create a kitchen, bedrooms and luxurious
bathrooms with the dramatic scale and highly
crafted detail of the surviving, ornate core of the
space. The antique modern style of the rebuild was
then the bridge to a collection of significant early modernist furniture that was put together for
the client, completing a very masculine,
social, designed urban residence. -
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KIPS BAY
The designing of kitchens and bathrooms is a
favorite area of detailed architectural and interior
work. One special opportunity to do a true fantasy
bathroom came in 1999 at the Kips Bay Show-
house in New York, just as I was launching my
first collection of retro-modern bath fittings with
Waterworks. There is a boldness to the architectural
and industrial design of the early skyscraper age in
America, which inspired this large bathroom and
sitting room suite as well as many other products
I was designing at the time. Certain custom
elements here, like the oversize shower stall, the vintage-style lighting, and the walnut and marble
vanity based on a 1930s worktable, are ideas that I
continue to adapt in many interior projects. -
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THE ACADEMY
My home on Long Island was built in 1833 as a boy’s academy. The original Neoclassical schoolhouse was first made into a residence and expanded in 1921. Nearly a century later, my own renovation involved the loving work of repairing a landmark building and collaborating with the local preservation board: an engagement that we often oversee with older homes in historic districts. Inside, the space is my loft-like, Aero version of a restored country house, mixing favorite vintage modern pieces with American country furniture and many an antique collection. Slipcovers and pale finishes, and a focus on a big gathering-place kitchen, make it comfortable and casual; an easy house for family life with pets, gardening, and time to recharge.
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LITCHFIELD
This 19th and early 20th century Dutch Colonial estate, set in a particularly beautiful, unspoiled corner of Connecticut, is a more formal interpretation of a country house than the Academy. Work began as an early visit to the property with new clients, and has continued on through a full restoration, including varied outbuilding and landscape designs. The style here is traditional, but in its spareness and soft, meadow-like palette, it is also sympathetic with a modern perspective. Antiques were chosen for pure silhouettes, in a mix of fine European pieces with simpler American ones. Woodwork is prevalent yet delicate, and upholstery and finishes are universally elegant, providing a dignified character to a house
designed for generations. -
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WEST VILLAGE LOFT
This loft apartment was created in response to a longtime client’s personal collection of Jean Prouvé and other important French modern furniture. The aim was to allow the pieces to be part of a comfortable, easy family home: to celebrate the original utility of modernism, rather than display furniture in a remote or formal way. Additional European and American modern furnishings and fine art were chosen for the residence, including ongoing acquisitions at auction, to build a truly individual, informed collection. The raw loft was given crafted yet simple architecture, designed to echo vintage modern studio spaces. Linear masonry, refined metalwork and cabinetry, and other industrial influences are drawn from
the same period as the furniture. -
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CHELSEA TOWNHOUSE
One of the studio’s early projects, documented in informal snapshots. The feel here was rich, dark,
and masculine, celebrating rather than erasing the moodiness of an old townhouse’s small rooms and silhouetting, north-south Manhattan light. Deep stony colors in greens, browns and greys created a warm setting for art, books, and refurbished midcentury modern finds, including pieces by Gio Ponti and other later modern Italian designs. The townhouse was subject to an absolute renovation, preserving key elements like the beautiful, mid-19th century winding staircase. Others were reinvented, including a fireplace mantle that became a favorite Aero form, and the retro Formica cabinets in the kitchen with grommet holes for handles. -
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NYC PENTHOUSE
An interior architecture project in the purest sense,
this carefully considered penthouse apartment was
the product of a lengthy collaboration with a well-
known fashion designer. The inspiration was French
and Italian modernism of the 1920s, immaculately
pared down yet very luxe. The entire residence was
crafted in only five major materials, used in each
room in different measure: specially developed
varnished linen, shagreen tile, nickel, plaster,
and walnut. The sensuality and warmth of these
beautiful finishes lets the simplicity be serene rather
than austere. The artisanal construction is held to
the highest standard; the architectural furniture is
fully partnered; and the geometry of the
spaces is the emphasis. -
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57th STREET TODAY
After a time living in this apartment, I began to
shift from the calm of a sparely furnished space to
the fullness of all the art that surrounds me today.
I had been collecting art in greater depth and
seriousness: modern master photography and
paintings, antiquities, ancient Chinese and Celtic
objects, ceramics and silver, sculptural pieces by
Giacometti, Bertoia, Nakashima. Here I brought all
of my interests together in the style of an artist’s
studio, even moving my bed into a niche of
the large main room. One entire wall is hung with
portraits, a subject I find particularly fascinating.
Building a truly diverse, personal art collection is
a part of creating a home that I find so important,
and which I do love to carry out for my clients. -
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BEACH HOUSE
Easy and collected, the decoration of this charming
Victorian shingled beach house comes out of the
design world of the store, much like the viewpoint in
my Brookhaven house. Reimagining traditional
beach and cottage style in a vintage modern key
remains a favorite for the more country-influenced
clients of both the studio and store. Refurbished
modern furniture from Aero mixes with local
antiques, family pieces, and other Aero uphol-
stery. Soft, cloud-like colors and layers of floral
and striped patterns are refreshed yet familiar.
The pale blue of the dining room, paired with
dark wood, is a light and dark balance that
recurs in many projects. The accessories in the
house, a mix of antique and new, have the
personal feel of being gathered over time. -
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BROOKHAVEN
The first home of my own was this small 1928
Dutch Colonial on Long Island. Oftentimes
old houses have a wonderful authenticity and
unassuming, honest craft that deserve to be left
alone. Renewal and refinement in this house came
in modest measures like warm ivory and stony
green paint colors, classic wooden reading room
Venetian blinds, and waxed floors. While the
furnishings here were mostly American country
antiques, culled from constant trips around Long
Island and upstate New York, I saw in them a
more modern point of view. The simplicity in an object’s plain geometry, or natural color, can
make it modern even when it is old or rustic.
Using country things in a clean, spare, edited
way is a throughline that began here. -
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SOHO ON BROADWAY
The assignment in this classic Soho, art-filled
loft was for furnishings, styling, and further art
consultation, working in collaboration with a prominent architect. The arts-based client had
previously been a customer of the Aero store.
Warm neutral tones and large, easy upholstery balanced the cool modernity of the new
architecture, while aspects of graphic color,
as in collection of bright 1960s posters, were
paired with strong silhouettes like our vintage-
style Thompson Side Table.This period of Soho,
with its shift from artist spaces to full residential
loft conversion, recalls the downtown creative
world that Aero originated in, and from which
many of our clients have come over the years. -
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CONNECTICUT
From the earliest days of Aero, I’ve always believed
in mixing together traditional and modern things,
casual and elegant things, city and country. This
1920s Connecticut cottage reflected a similar
duality. Though a very pretty, vintage house with
original paneling and millwork, it had large,
beautiful, metal casement windows that
introduced the light and openness of an artist’s studio. The rooms were given pale walls and floors in a loft-like idiom. The urban-to-antique furniture was from my first commercial collection, while other lamps and accessories were artisan-crafted studio pieces that I designed for Aero. Dark wood is set against a light background; embellished shapes
pair with clean modern ones. The style,
like the house, is old and new. -
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HOTEL AND GYM
In addition to residential projects, the studio also
designs retail, commercial, and hospitality spaces.
From early stores for Donna Karan and Giorgio
Armani, to current and ongoing store development
for West Elm, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma,
there is always a deep home interior perspective
brought to the work of creating public venues.
Two projects that illustrate this approach are
60 Thompson hotel in Soho, and the David Barton
gym on the Upper East Side. Recent work in real
estate development also bridges public and
domestic design. We are privileged to be creating
the interior design for the entirety of The Greenwich
Lane, an historic, multi-building residential complex
in the heart of the West Village, currently
under construction. -
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BRIDGEHAMPTON
The assignment of furnishing this Norman Jaffe
house, nestled in the trees on a beautiful coastal
landscape, focused on vintage and modern
naturalism. Colors, materials, and shapes in each
room became echoes of the cedar wood, stone, and
tile of which the house was built. In a longstanding
collaboration with this client, a core collection of fine
European modernist furniture has been expanded
and softened with American modern antiques and
a wide range of designed objects from Aero. Spare,
simple living with an elemental warmth is the
character of the home, but also, importantly, it is
the spirit of the family that comes through in a
number of city and country residences
that we have created together. -
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SAGAPONACK
Sometimes a piece of furniture that is designed
for a particular space becomes the inspiration for a
lasting product. This is the case with a table made
for a client’s home in the fields of Sagaponack, a
classic shingle house transformed with white stucco
into a more modern residence. Following the low,
clean gestures of the renovation, I designed two
table forms with a very simple teak frame, each
topped with an inset sheet of glass notched around
the leg. When I opened Aero, I had another set of
these tables made for the store. Later I moved them
into our conference room, and replaced the glass
with grey gloss Formica. These are the tables I still
work at today, where so much of the studio’s
design has taken place over twenty years. -
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