Big Mood

Danielle Colding delivers the drama for a pair of audacious New York clients

- Catherine Hong

Too much is never enough." These immortal words attributed both to Mick Jagger and the 18th-century playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais could just as well have come straight from the lips of the homeowners of this Manhattan townhouse.

Here, behind the 1910 building's deceptively plain facade, patterns play on patterns, cocktail-bar vibes reign, and the dining room feels like a Matisse collage come to life. Interior designers regularly praise their clients for being "fearless" and "risky," but in this case, says Danielle Colding, the typical designer-client relationship was practically flipped upside down. "They actually pushed me to go bolder than I would have on my own," she says, admiringly. "That's rare." It was the spring of 2019 when the ELLE DECOR A-List designer was commissioned by the couple-an attorney and a writer with two dogs, no children, and a knack for entertaining to transform the five-story building into a personality-filled home base. Structurally, the newly renovated building was in good shape and boasted sun-drenched front rooms, three outdoor areas, and elaborate moldings on the parlor floor. But the finishes felt heavy, dominated by what Colding describes as "outdated espresso-mocha colors," and the house overall suffered from a dearth of flair.