Inside the 700-Square-Foot Manhattan Home of AD100 Designer Carlos Mota

Want to know the secret to giving a tiny apartment a big personality? Crowd it with objects, splash it with color, and pile on the patterns, an equation that distracts the eye as much as it delights the soul. At least, that’s the philosophy of Carlos Mota, the fast-talking, globe-trotting stylist turned decorator and consultant with four inspiring books to his name (including his new hit, G: Forever Green, published by Vendome Press) and a new fabric collection called Verde, the first step in a home-furnishings line branded Casamota.

“I never plan anything,” the AD100 designer says of the swashbuckling approach. “I just hope it works—and if it doesn’t, I’ll just sell it.” His latest domestic scenario is a new Manhattan home base, a 700-square-foot flat in a voluptuous Beaux Arts mansion that had been built in the late 1800s for a construction magnate. For Mota, who splits his time between New York City, Lisbon, and the Dominican Republic, the apartment is a downsize that was necessitated when he realized that his business travels made his former, more spacious abode in Chelsea impractical. What he lost in scale, though, he has more than made up for in atmosphere. If anything, his new address is even more madcap in spirit.

“Your eye goes everywhere: boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” Mota emphatically says of the living room, where labor-intensive stucco Veneziano—“crazy expensive for a rental,” he admits—slicks the walls in a flattering shade of pink. (The alcove bedroom is a vivid mottled green, which, tied with purple, ranks as Mota’s favorite color.) French, Chinese, Moroccan, Indian, Swedish, and Central African objects, as well as treasures from points beyond, mingle quite contentedly. Some are antiques, such as a pair of Gustavian chairs, while others are vintage finds, like the tuxedo sofa covered in its original flowered chintz. Bits of wicker are placed here and there, and a grand verdure tapestry, released from Mota’s storage unit, now spans one wall with only about an inch to spare. The only uncomfortable perch is a funky painted wooden seat, though its sculptural shape is what pleases. “When I have money, I buy really good things, but I like the mix of high and low,” Mota continues, adding that even if the budget is tight, you can always find “a great lamp or a couple of chairs” that will bring up the tone.

None of what he lives with really matches but it all coordinates, given the source. “It’s very Carlos,” the designer says with a laugh, noting that the flat’s “crazy mélange” aesthetic— part dispossessed society grandee, part old-fashioned hotel suite—became even more so once he began layering in the works of art, among them reverse-painted portraits of Qing dynasty beauties, that he has long admired. They are so densely hung that it creates an insular sensation made even cozier at night, thanks to the pools of light cast by a dozen or so lamps. “A room is successful when you walk in and don’t want to leave,” Mota says. “This is my cave, a cozy little cave. Sometimes I don’t tell anyone that I’m in town—I just do my work, sleep, and I’m off again.”