Game Changer

Mark Grattan crafts a bold retreat for two globe-trotting sports superstars come home to nest.

-  Katherine Bernard

In 2021, Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, one of the most decorated power couples in sports, found themselves in pursuit of a new kind of ornamentation: the interior design of their first home purchased together. For the former WNBA guard and the reigning U.S. Women's National Team champion, the winning tip came from Rapinoe's stylist, Karla Welch, who put her on to ELLE DECOR A-List designer Mark Grattan.

Rapinoe slid humbly into Grattan's Instagram DMS: "My fiancée and I just got a place in SoHo and need HALP!" The place in question was a 1,650-square-foot, two-bedroom pied-à-terre with high ceilings, sweeping views onto the city, and a rooftop terrace to boot. "New York is a really special place to both of us," Rapinoe says. "Sue is from here. It feels like the place where we fell in love-it feels like home in so many ways." Grattan was charmed by the soccer star's effusion of emojis. "I typically let people sweat a little bit," he says. This time, he responded the same day.

Grattan knew he'd need "HALP!" with the project, his first residential design commission outside his own Mexico City home. (That apartment, in a Luis Barragán-designed building, was on ELLE DECOR'S April 2021 cover.) To that end, he brought on friend and frequent collaborator Chloe Pollack-Robbins, of Curious Yellow Design, to manage the job and keep things progressing on an admittedly compressed timeline. "I'm more of a storyteller," Grattan says. "Chloe understands my glitches, my triggers, my mess. It was very easy to go into this with her."