Rule of Threes

On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a trio of AD100 talents bring rigor and romance to a historic town house

- DAVID FOXLEY

Any project involving multiple designers requires plenty of open conversation and some healthy design diplomacy, but all the more so in the case of a recent renovation to an Upper West Side town house. When a French-born couple purchased the property as a home for themselves and their school-age children, they enlisted a trifecta of AD100 firms: Elizabeth Roberts Architects (ERA), landscape designer Grace Fuller Marroquin, and decorator Leonora Hamill. “We felt very fortunate to work with ‘three graces,’ each with their own personality,” says the husband.

IN THE LIVING ROOM, DMITRIY & CO SOFAS FLANK A BESPOKE OTTOMAN IN DÉCORS BARBARES FABRIC; ARTWORKS BY JEAN DUBUFFET, RAOUL DUFY, AND OSSIP ZADKINE.

Ideas bounced back and forth among the seasoned trio. “It was a real dialogue,” Hamill reflects of the collaboration. Add to that conversation the homeowners themselves (both aesthetes from art-collecting families), and you had many opinionated parties, often spanning time zones, with unique points of view. The trick became balancing Hamill’s maximalist inclinations, shared by the wife, with the pared-back sensibility favored by the husband, which was more in line with ERA’s clean-lined style. Adds Hamill: “It was putting pieces together into a puzzle they loved.”