On A High Note

In one of New York’s tallest towers, Jamie Drake and Caleb Anderson employ a restrained palette, luxe fabrics, and gleaming surfaces to compose a stirring ode to Manhattan glamour

- Nancy Hass

BEING ASKED TO CREATE AN APARTMENT in one of the tallest residential skyscrapers to rise in midtown Manhattan in the last few years would be a high-water mark for any designer. The architect and designer Jamie Drake, whose swashbuckling 39-year career has taken a new turn due to his recent partnership with former protégé Caleb Anderson, concedes that even he—no stranger to ultra-luxurious commissions—was glad dened by the epic opportunity to deck out this sprawling pied à-terre overlooking Central Park.

The clients are two grown siblings and their children, who live abroad but alight in New York as often as their whirlwind schedules will allow; they envisioned the apartment as a refuge in the clouds. The project was a perfect fit for the designers. Drake certainly has had plenty of experience channeling the antiques-laden desires of the international elite: He made his name designing several homes for former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, including a classically adorned Upper East Side limestone mansion, a 6,000-square-foot get away in Bermuda, and a vast formal townhouse in London’s South Kensington neighborhood.