LOVE LANGUAGE

In her new home in NYC, Celerie Kemble makes room for all the things and people she cherishes

- AMANDA BROOKS

ONLY Celerie Kemble could gut-renovate and decorate a five-story Manhattan town house in nine months. But let's start with how she chose the house in the first place. It was 2022; her marriage had ended several years earlier, and Kemble had been renting a place with her three young children, sons Rascal and Wick and daughter Zinnia. She was taking the slow road to buying until her partner, Stephen Roesler, nudged her with a listing of a town house in the often overlooked East Side neighborhood of Murray Hill, just around the corner from the Morgan Library. On paper, it seemed underwhelming-it was unusually narrow in width and not really her style. Even her longtime friend Bronson van Wyck looked at the listing and replied "Jeez, Cel. You don't want to live in a dollhouse. Twelve feet wide isn't worth canceling my lunch for." But Kemble knew she had to start looking, and as besties do, van Wyck showed up.

They walked into a well-proportioned, 19th-century Italianate house with high ceilings, original crown moldings, and no less than eight fireplaces. By the time they reached the second floor, he looked at her and said, "Offer full asking."