Tour a Glossy Manhattan High-Rise Apartment That’s Actually Surprisingly Cozy
“I’m just a boy from Northern England with a small studio,” Charles Mellersh professes as he retells the tale—with a smidge of disbelief—of how he managed to design his first project overseas, a New York City luxury high-rise.
“It was scary and challenging, but certainly exciting,” he adds, noting the additional barriers of having to find an entirely new set of workers, suppliers, and contractors. Most challenging of all would be the initial state of the apartment, which boasted a high-polish, intensely gilded and ornate interior—a look that was completely antithetical to the warm, down-to-earth, and cozy home that Mellersh envisioned. “With the frescos and upholstered walls, Liberace could have lived there,” the designer jokes.
The first order of business was to strip the apartment of its layered treatments. Once returned to its bare white-box beginnings, Mellersh was able to give the home a distinctly personal feel, untethered to its former styling. That of course created a new issue: “The problem was it felt like generic international luxury,” Mellersh says. His clients, however, wanted a cozy city base that would provide welcome respite after inevitably busy days. “So we gave careful consideration to materials that would instill a deep sense of comfort, and help ground them.”
In the open kitchen and dining area, this meant using an array of earthy tones, beginning with oak veneer paneling along the walls, in order to convey a sense of warmth. Timber chevron floors were carefully crafted to further emphasize materiality. However, the busy gray and white Arabescata seen in the kitchen took a bit of convincing. (It was a hit in the end.) “I love [being able to] add a sense of nature with graphic shapes,” the designer muses.
Similar details can be found on a much smaller scale throughout the home. In the sleek and contemporary primary bathroom, a small beech wood stool with a tea-stained finish by Scandinavian designer Salem Charabi, makes for the perfect accent. Elsewhere, in the office, a bespoke coffee table by Jeremy Pitts sits on a raw banana silk rug with a deliberately rough and unfinished edge. “It’s small, but it reminds you of material while in this throbbing metropolis.” (The Empire State Building can be seen out of one window.) Not far off, a Mongolian lamb’s wool chair creates a textural contrast. The rest of the room is just as much of an oasis, thanks to its Etruscan brown sheath of paint.
Across the hall, the primary bedroom maintains a similar sense of balance. “They loved blue,” Mellersh emphasizes. To mitigate the awkwardness of protruding columns and structural elements, the designer opted for a complete monochrome: blue bed frame, blue side tables, blue bedding, and blue walls, which boast a specially made ribbon wallpaper by Callidus Guild. This interior, like the rest of the home, feels calming and intimate, despite its cinematic views. “It’s a reassuringly warm home that overlooks the relentless bustle of Manhattan,” Mellersh concludes of the apartment. “It really has its own character.”
