Tour a Greenwich Village Townhouse Steeped in Old-School Elegance
“Since childhood, I’ve lived in Alex’s creations, which means I’ve grown up a beneficiary of his incredible talent,” Rudin Earls explains, noting that her husband’s family live in Papachristidis environments too. “His is an old-world style that operates at the highest aesthetic.” So instead of avoiding the past, like so many members of the modern-minded jeunesse dorée, they have embraced it with an enthusiasm that might easily puzzle their contemporaries. Thus, the shapely Venetian-inspired chairs by 1930s British decorator Syrie Maugham, the gilt-bronze tables by 1950s French arbiter elegantiarum Georges Geffroy, the dining table with a parquet de Versailles top that was made by legendary Paris design firm Jansen, and the brace of meltingly romantic 18th-century Venetian landscapes by the mysteriously named Master of the Langmatt Foundation Views. Impressive, yes, but the layers of history and blue-chip provenance are leavened by freshening flashes of mirrored glass and herbaceous-border shades such as pale green and sharp blue.
“The theme was a garden,” Rudin Earls says, noting that the town house has a lush private garden and several terraces, and that she and her husband—he calls their tastes “wonderfully complementary”—wanted their rooms to have the atmosphere of perpetual springtime. Setting the tone is a Gracie wallpaper that rises five stories from the entrance hall to the top-floor landing, its silver ground covered with flowering trees in classic Chinese Export style. Earls calls it “an incredibly powerful decision, but you can’t deny the impact.”
Other botanical flourishes include the dining room’s reflective flowered pilasters that were painted by decorative artist Delphine Nény—she also extravagantly stenciled the living room walls—and the kitchen’s rose-and-tulip-splashed fabric. The textile lavishes side chairs that reproduce a suave mid-20th-century Frances Elkins design, counter stools that Papachristidis adapted from an 18th-century Swedish chair, and the wall-size window that opens to the breakfast terrace. Trelliswork, an element encountered in historic European gardens, lines the entry vestibule, and ravishing porcelain flowers, custom-made by artisan Vladimir Kanevsky, flourish on tabletops throughout the house.
