Art and Nature Take Center Stage in This Aspen Residence

CCY Architects does not typically design a long entry sequence for houses in Aspen, Colorado, which gets over 12 feet of snow a year. But for a mountainside residence overlooking the Roaring Fork Vall­ey, the firm built a 90-foot path between the parking area and the front door. By local standards, “That’s a long, long walk,” says CCY principal Alex Klumb. But the clients, an art-collecting couple, sought to highlight a recent acquisition: a reflective PVD-coated stainless-steel head by the Swiss artist Not Vital. CCY placed the sculpture at the end of an allée of aspens leading to the entrance. “It frames nature, draws you to the door, and slows everybody down before releasing to an incredible view,” Klumb explains. It also establishes the home’s focus on art and the outdoors.

Besides the Not Vital sculpture, the clients hadn’t earmarked specific pieces for the house, so they worked with Kleinberg to see which fit best: a Calder over a guest-room bed, a James Rosenquist at the top of the stairs. In the dining room, a David Hockney drawing echoes the moun­tains outside the window. It hangs above three square oak tables that can be joined or separated depending on the size of the group—the sort of practical touch that makes the home livable. The paintings and views may be spectacular, Kleinberg says, “but the interiors have to hold their own.” The result is as layered as a work of art.

A Mountainside Vacation Home Designed by CCY Architects

through galerie carole decombe: mirror (entry)

apparatus studio: con­sole

11 ravens: custom billiards table (rec room)

adam otlewski: side table

soane britain: chairs (dining room)

minotti: pendant fixtures

focus fireplaces: fireplace (guest sitting room)

perennials fabrics: sectional fabric

through 1stdibs: lamp, coffee table, chair

cassina: armchair

romo fabrics: armchair fabric

scott group studio: rugs (guest sitting room, living room)

colorado pool designs: custom pool, spa (terrace)

zachary a. design: tables

knoll: sofas, lounges, chaises

a.r.s.antiqua: custom wood cocktail tables (living room)

fernando mastrangelo studio: custom square side tables

blanche jelly: round side table

through valerie goodman gallery: custom floor lamp

cowtan & tout; edelman leather: sectional fabrics

glant textiles: lounge chair fabric

wud furniture: nightstand (bedroom)

bourgeois boheme: custom sconce

dune: custom bed

nobilis paris: headboard fabric

through twentieth gallery: bench (hall)

Roll & Hill: pendant fixture (study)

warp & weft: custom rug

nada debs: side table

charles h. beckley: daybed cushions

mark alexander fabrics: cushion fabric

Design Within Reach: chairs

token: barstools (rec room)

arabel fabrics: sectional fabric

adam otlewski: side tables

arrigoni woods: wood flooring

ergon engineered stone: tile flooring

grabill windows and doors: windows, doors

lift studio: land­scape architect

ls group: lighting design

kl&a engineers: structural engineer

woody creek engineering: civil engineer

anthony lawrence-belfair: custom furniture work­shop

structural associates: general contractor

This Tropical Modernist Miami Home is at One With its Surroundings

“This house is surprising for Miami,” admits Max Strang, founding principal of Strang Design. While the city’s name typically conjures up visions of South Beach residences packed on prime palm-tree-lined waterfront properties, he and firm partners Alexandra Mangimelli and Elizabeth Starr created something altogether different for a family relocating from Brazil. On an estate-sized oak grove just 20 minutes from downtown, the project accurately reflects the couple’s heritage in everything from the layout and materials to the landscaping and furnishings.

The house that originally stood on the lot was torn down, allowing a new one to grow from the ground up. The studio specializes in contextualizing homes to their immediate surroundings via use of natural materials, eschewing plain white boxes. Here, this approach translated to an earthy palette and the placement of plant life—and the structure itself—in a manner that blurs the line between building and landscape. “We were careful to work with existing oaks and gumbo limbos when siting the house,” Strang recalls. The firm designed planters to wrap the second-floor exterior, supplemented by aluminum privacy louvers that double as trellises, enabling vines to climb up the facade. “Eventually, the elevations will be partially enveloped in the growth,” he predicts.

The project, Strang continues, “presented an opportunity to marry our firm style, which we describe as ‘environmental modernism,’ with the more tropical modernism of the Brazilian aesthetic.” An H-shape footprint creates a series of wings, a configuration that allows light to spill into every corner. Multiple rooms feature floor-to-ceiling glass pocket doors that open onto a pool, abetting an easy rapport between indoors and out while upholding a strong sense of privacy. The sliders are also practical: “Miami is hot as hell, but as long as you have generous shade and a little bit of a breeze, you’re fine,” Strang notes. Starr adds that the openness of the layout suits the clients’ lifestyle: “How the family entertains informed the variety of seating areas and the circulation between them, as well as the creation of interior and exterior spaces that flow into one to another.” The latter include a patio-adjacent club room equipped with an exhaust system to handle cigar smoke.

The furnishings, many of which were collected by the owners over the years, pay poetic homage to the concept of relocation. The living room contains midcentury pieces by Jorge Zalszupin, who moved to Rio de Janiero in 1949 after fleeing his native Poland to escape Nazi persecution, and Jean Gillon, born in Romania and later based in São Paulo. Both were known for their use of local materials and traditional furniture-making techniques. Also inhabiting several rooms is seating by Sergio Rodrigues, frequently referred to as the father of Brazilian furniture design, who made languorous pieces that responded to his country’s tropical climate and easygoing way of life. They’re right at home here.

While the palette is predominantly earth-tone, with travertine flooring and abundant teak paneling, generous moments of color are provided by the homeowners’ art collection. Works on display are drawn from an international roster, including Ethiopian talent Elias Sime; Munich-born New York–based Janaina Tschäpe (who was raised in São Paulo); and Amir Nikravan, an American artist of Iranian and Mexican descent. The design team provided settings that create a rich, varied backdrop. One piece, Sime’s Tightrope: I Want to Slow Down and Think, 2017, a collage of repurposed electronic components, was bought while the house was under construction, “so we had to find a wall that would work,” Mangimelli says. A secondary seating area in the main living space became the designated spot. “The piece really looks like it was meant to be there,” she notes of the serendipitous result.

In keeping with South American tradition, the kitchen is not the central hub, but rather positioned off to one side of the floor plan. That said, it’s no wallflower—note the dramatic geometric-patterned backsplash tile. “It was definitely the right way to go,” Mangimelli says of the attention-grabbing encaustic mosaic.

Although the residence is well-suited to entertaining, it does have a public/private divide, with the more tucked-away second floor housing bedrooms, a family room, and a gym. One wing is devoted to guest quarters and the two childrens’ rooms, the other to the primary suite. Despite the home’s generous size—10,000 square feet—it contains only five bedrooms. The intent was to create spacious sanctums, Mangimelli says, “rather than see how many bedrooms we could fit.”

As for the 1.5-acre plot, the clients’ request was a garden that gives joy. To accomplish this, Strang Design collaborated with La Casona Garden to create a “manifold sensory experience of sight, smell, hearing, and taste—a garden of earthly delights,” landscape designer Ana Miron explains. Plantings are diverse, a mix of ground cover, flowers, small bushes, and various sizes of trees, designed to complement the oaks. Native species are included, as well as a section certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a wildlife habitat, with the land offering ideal conditions, Miron says, “for companion species, birds, bees, butterflies, and squirrels.” And, of course, the property’s human residents.

strang design: maria ascoli, vanessa arteaga peña, viviana conley, catherine crotty

la casona garden: landscape consultant

francisco cuello jr.; henry vidal & associates, inc.: structural engineers

jorge g. maldonado: civil engineer

contemporary builders, inc.: general contractor

david krynauw through southern guild gallery: chandelier (dining room)

restoration hardware: armchairs, tables (patios); beds (primary bedroom, daughter’s room)

apparatus studio: ceiling lights (club room, primary bedroom)

mia cucina: cabinetry, countertop (kitchen)

artistic tile through ceramic matrix: backsplash tile

subzero-wolf: wall ovens, cooktop

ligne roset: ottoman (daughter’s room)

Duravit: toilet (primary bathroom)

vola: sink fittings

opustone: travertine

es windows: windows

dn design studio inc.: millwork

Jorge Pérez’s Private Collection on Display at One Park Grove in Miami by OMA and Meyer Davis

“Let’s build sculpture.” That’s how Will Meyer, principal of Meyer Davis, recalls the design team of One Park Grove—the last of three towers to be built in a Coconut Grove, Miami, waterfront residential complex—being rallied by Jorge Pérez, chairman of Related Group, which co-developed the project with Terra Group. “Jorge didn’t say, ‘Let’s build a box and decorate it,’” Meyer notes. “It’s a totally different approach to design.”

Pérez, one of Miami’s preeminent art collectors (his name graces the Pérez Art Museum Miami by Herzog & de Meuron) assembled an all-star lineup to bring One Park Grove to life. OMA, led by partner Shohei Shigematsu, envisioned the tower’s undulating architecture of exterior concrete columns that swell and contract like the trunks of royal palm trees. Studio Sofield designed the understated kitchens and bathrooms in the residences.

Landscape architect Enzo Enea laid out the parklike grounds, which cover 5 acres and include an outdoor amphitheater, a ribbon of swimming pools, and a sculpture park. And celebrity event planner Colin Cowie programmed services and experiences from music playlists to poolside towel and sunscreen selections.

Meyer Davis’s charge was designing the tower’s lobby, amenity spaces (more than 50,000 square feet of them, including a screening room, spa, and wine room), and other public areas, incorporating artwork from Pérez’s extensive private collection. “There are a lot of branded towers in Miami, but this one has a real personality,” co-principal Gray Davis says. “It touches on all the sensory points that make an enjoyable experience and give the project a real soul.”

Meyer Davis senior project manager Sonya Cheng calls One Park Grove’s interiors “bohemia on the bay.” That’s a reference to Coconut Grove’s long history—it’s the city’s oldest neighborhood—and reputation as Miami’s free-spirited artistic and intellectual hub. Onetime abode of John Singer Sargent, Tennesse Williams, and Joni Mitchell, the Grove, as it’s known, is home to the city’s top private schools and the former Coconut Grove Playhouse. The neighborhood also happens to be one of the city’s leafiest, with a dense tree canopy that stretches to the shores of Biscayne Bay. “I thought we should provide something of the essence of Coconut Grove, immersed in nature and maximizing exposure to light and air,” Shigematsu says of the 23-story tower’s 68 residences, which he likens to “stacked villas.”

Shigematsu cites another influence on OMA’s architecture: Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1983 Surrounded Islands, where they wrapped an archipelago of tiny islets in nearby Biscayne Bay in sheets of hot-pink polypropylene. Cheng also mentions the installation as influencing how the lobby interiors negotiate the tower’s unique peanut-shape footprint—pinched at the center with two elevator cores—and multiple grade changes. Similar to the way the islands were encircled with concentric bands of pink fabric, the designers layered ribbons of stone flooring that radiate outward from the core. “Where all those lines converge and intersect, we created ‘islands’ of seating groups,” Cheng explains. Patterned rugs ground those sitting areas—Meyer describes them as “moments of serenity, the residual between waves”—as they float between the core and the lobby’s curved glass exterior. The language of undulating forms continues vertically, with core walls clad in slats of white oak and others hosting a palisade of backlit white panels. “It’s not a traditional layout—it’s organic and really out there,” Meyer acknowledges. “It was hard to describe to people who weren’t on the team exactly what we were doing. It’s really a new language with its own logic, rules, and geometry, but it creates its own sense of space.”

Positioning large sculptures from Pérez’s collection also directed Meyer, Davis, and Cheng’s choreography of the lobby’s interior. At times, circulation took a backseat to art placement, in which Pérez played an enthusiastically active role. “Sometimes, we’d pick a spot and Jorge would say, ‘No, this piece works better over there,’” Cheng recalls. Sometimes the team accompanied Pérez to his private storage facility to preview artworks, other times to the art museum in downtown Miami. “We turned the typical design process upside down to achieve a different result,” Meyer notes.

An early recommendation was South African artist Ledelle Moe’s ensemble work Memorial Collapse, a trio of monumental heads, laid on their sides, with rebar emerging through the concrete. “When Jorge suggested those, our response was a resounding ‘Hell, yeah!’” Meyer recalls. “He gets really excited about art. When he sees the direction a designer or architect is going in, he wants them to take it as far as they can. If you lean in on his spirit, you get results.”

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Other works populating One Park Grove’s public spaces run a gamut of styles and media. Outside in the gardens, Jaume Plensa’s The Poets in Bordeaux (Body Soul God, Country, Water Fire), which comprises three 35-foot poles topped by illuminated resin busts, changes appearance as the lights cycle through different colors. Interior amenity spaces feature more subtle works, including delicate vellum drawings by Miami-based artist Michele Oka Doner and a Richard Serra etching.

One Park Grove’s well-orchestrated blend of architecture, design, and art bears an ultimate stamp of approval: Earlier this year, Pérez, who has lived on the Coconut Grove waterfront for decades, decided to trade in his Venetian palazzo-style mansion for a penthouse at One Park Grove. He donated the $33 million proceeds from the sale of his house to The Miami Foundation.

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meyer davis: scott abrahams; matthew haseltine; cass nakashima; nils sanderson; daeho lee; matthew edgardo davis; jeremy kim; gonzalo lopez; pantea tehrani; sumit sahdev; jun shimada; andrew mack; miguel darcy; betty fan; carly dean; ahmadreza schricker; britt johnson; shida salehi-esmati; jackie woon bae; ian watchorn; filippo nanni; esin erez; luke willis: oma. mei lau; drew tucker; marianne mordhorst

arquitectonica: architect of record.

arredoluce; enea garden design; plant the future: landscaping consultant

south dade lighting: lighting consultant

desimone consulting engineers: structural engineer

feller engineering: mep

vsn engineering: civil engineer

allegheny millwork; miles of wood: woodwork

excellence in stone: stonework

american upholstery: custom upholstered-goods workshop.

moriarty: general contractor

stripe vintage modern: blue armchairs (lobby)

Stellar Works: nesting tables

f&r general interiors: custom console (lobby), table (wine room)

apparatus studio: pendant fixtures (reception)

steel monkey dream shop: custom shelving (reception, lobby)

gabriel scott: pendant fixtures (lobby)

tacchini: round side tables

liaigre: floor lamp

the future perfect: modular coffee tables

phillips collection: side table

bec brittain: pendant fixture

harbour: sofa, chairs, coffee table (cabana)

marset: floor lamp

metalarte: table lamp

berhardt design: console (spa), pendant fixture (playroom)

usona: chaise longues (spa)

hbf textiles: wallcovering (screening room)

ludwig & larsen: sconces

sacco carpet: custom carpet

kravet: chair fabric

jab anstoetz: pillow fabric

opuzen: drapery fabric

tri-kes: custom wallcovering (playroom)

tommy bahama: pillows

wine cellar innovations: custom lockers (wine room)

le lampade: ceiling fixture

tailor-made textiles: custom rugs

benjamin moore & co.; scuffmaster: paint

Architect Stephen Conte Creates a Statement-Making Brooklyn Duplex

With a client wish to “stand out without standing out,” architect Stephen Conte didn’t flinch. Rather, the Pratt Institute alumnus and StudiosC founder welcomed the challenge of the koanlike request—the request coming from a couple for their Brooklyn duplex. Further, the clients were looking to avoid a generic space highlighted by a few paintings, photographs, and colorful objets. Their desire was that the home itself, as well as its furniture and lighting, be an artistic statement.

Expecting their first child during the process, they had purchased two stacked units in a condominium building in Greenpoint, where Conte’s studio is located, to be combined into a single 2,100-square-foot residence. The ensuing gut renovation involved reimagining the kitchen and smoothing out myriad bumps and soffits in the walls and ceilings for a unified, clean appearance throughout. Even lighting access panels were made seamless, hidden within the plasterboard of the ceilings.

The serene and airy result demarcates between public and private life: Entry is through a small foyer gently illuminated by Michael Anastassiades pendant globes that opens into the kitchen, dining, and living area downstairs, while the family area—den/study, two bedrooms that share a bathroom, primary suite—is upstairs. A glass catwalk linking the rooms above overlooks the double-height space below. Sidestepping easy wow moments and obvious pops of color to create interest, Conte instead relied on subtlety, craftsmanship, and finishes. “People come in and, rather than be overwhelmed, they slowly begin to notice the details.”

Examples can be found in the kitchen, where Conte had the half-round handles and pulls made from the same solid white oak as the cabinetry, yielding a rhythmic expanse of matching horizontals and verticals. He then installed a steel plate under the island counter so its white marble top could cantilever out 2 feet. The original counter had big square legs that hampered seating options; the upgraded, floating surface not only allows for more stools, namely sculptural black ones by Castor Design, but is also more streamlined. “It created a really nice gesture there,” Conte notes. Shelving is also marble, up-lit by LED strips, creating another weightless, open moment. And the kitchen’s oak continues into the eating and living areas via an oval dining table and paneling behind the cream-colored sofa.

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Overall, the palette is calm. The slightly varying shades of wood in the flooring, millwork, and furnishings give warmth and texture yet remain cohesive. But there are minimal moments of intense color in the private zone, such as the den’s couch upholstered in a rich emerald and the tobacco leather of the primary suite’s bed. Coupled with the hues of the artworks nearby, however, these become another way of expressing equilibrium.

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flos: pendant globes (entry)

liebherr: custom refrigerator (kitchen)

lodes through lightology: ceiling fix­tures

through matter: stools

bertazzoni: cooktop

abc stone: marble

franke: sink

hansgrohe: sink fittings

gebrüder thonet vienna: chairs (dining area)

through the future perfect: chandelier, table (dining area), sofa, side table (living area), table, lamp (den)

through design within reach: table (living area), console (den)

cassina: sofa, side tables, chair (den), bed (bedroom)

kvadrat: rug (den)

bower studios: mirror (bedroom)

Add tag via side panel:

apparatus studio: pendant fixtures, sconces

jardan: side tables

janik furniture specialists: woodwork

jjs management: general contractor.