Wall Power

Seven Peytons, six Stingels, four Cattelans, three Currins, three Princes, two Wools, and a smattering of Koons, Kapoor, Giacometti, and Quaytman. Thank heavens for Alex Papachristidis, who designed a home for one of New York’s finest private collections that is itself a work of art.

In the living room of a Manhattan apartment designed by Alex Papachristidis and renovated by architect Robert Morris, a pair of 1960s chairs from John Salibello is in a Manuel Canovas fabric, the custom sofas are covered in Holland & Sherry fabrics, and the Karl Springer cocktail table (foreground) is from Mantiques Modern; the 1960s stainless steel chairs and cube are by Maria Pergay, the table lamps are by Andrea Koeppel, and the curtains are of a Manuel Canovas silk cotton blend; the artworks on the wall are by (from left) Richard Prince, Rudolf Stingel, George Condo, and Elizabeth Peyton.

WHEN YOU OWN A BRILLIANT collection of blue-chip contemporary art, assembled slowly and deliberately with your heart as well as with your head (the elusive true collector), it can be difficult to create a setting with the aesthetic brio to match. But this native Manhattanite in her 50s did not have to look far to find a simpatico partner: Interior designer extra ordinaire Alex Papachristidis has been a family friend since childhood. They both grew up in (perhaps unsurprisingly) art filled households on the Upper East Side during the late 1970s. In fact, it was she who, during college, told Papachristidis that he should become a decorator. “It was so obvious to me,” she says, decades later. “And now, the really beautiful thing is that everything has come full circle.”