FIT for a DUCHESS

When Miles Redd and David Kaihoi come calling in Rochester, New York, the results are anything but mild-mannered. Simon Doonan engages them on those Windsors—Edward and Wallis—the color red, and the answer to the question, Do you want to live in ugly? Well, no...

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The stone façade of q 1930s Tudor Revival in Rochester, New York, that was designed by Redd Kaihoi.

SIMON DOONAN: The word that screeched out of my brain when I first looked at this project was ecclesiastical. The house looks like a bishopric—and I don't mean to be obscene.

MILES REDD: I was not thinking of that at all. I was thinking the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the French countryside at [their estate] the Mill—that was the ethos behind this.

DAVID KAIHOI: The Mill was sort of a French pile—white stucco walls, lots of bright color.

MR: And red wall-to-wall carpet, and then kind of a mad chintz, and then a needlepoint rug. It was all black with bows, and they're always in black tie on top of it.

SD: I can see the duchess, the ultimate dandy married to the ultimate dandy, mincing around and rearranging things in that living room. But you've got to admit there is a gothic tone to this house.

DK: It's reeking from the architecture. The challenge was to take that architecture down—not to have period pieces. To have happier, brighter, lush—it's taffeta, it's silk velvet, it's wool wall-to-wall. Leaning back into comfort instead of what those rooms give you when they're bare.

In the entry, a Regency giltwood mirror hangs over an English mahogany console. The bamboo trunks are antique.