![]() ![]() There are all the familiar symptoms: overcrowding, poverty, crime, and poor health. Yet today, nearly a century later, the projects are arguably the closest thing New York has to the slums of its past (or of developing countries). The overcrowded, poorly ventilated, unsanitary, and crime-ridden NYC slums would be swept away by a grand effort of publicly funded, thoughtfully planned living complexes that would bring dignity and well-being to New York’s working classes. Pink (of the eponymous Pinks housing project in Brooklyn), who was Chairman of the State Board of Housing, to create the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who himself had lost his wife to tuberculosis attributable to poor housing, had joined Louis H. When the United States’ first public housing was built in 1935 in New York City, the initiative marked the beginning of the end of New York’s rampant slums. If there’s anything I learned from people like Marc Jacobs and Paul Fortune, it’s that style means nothing without grace and comfort.Above: A series of graphics released by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) in the 30’s and 40’s with the onset of public housing construction. “In the end it’s the little things, like where exactly are you going to put your cup of tea and your newspaper. “I like to use color in nuanced ways, to find complex hues that change subtly depending on the time of day and what surrounds them,” he adds. ![]() No matter how precisely you calculate the mix of old and new and custom pieces, a home has to feel warm and relaxed,” the designer opines. “A home should feel considered, but not overdetermined. The inclusion of an African Dogon ladder represents another Catroux-approved decorative flourish. “That was my nod to Betty and Francois Catroux,” Kenyon says, describing the seductive ensemble. The drama ratchets up in the couple’s primary bedroom, enrobed in shades of purple and burgundy, with Karl Springer lamps set on Paul Evans bedside tables, a Jules Leleu chair in Prelle fabric, and a formidable coromandel screen-cum-headboard. The dining room is enveloped in a cocoon of panels upholstered in a mousy brown corduroy-a discreet foil to a bold Apparatus chandelier, a custom, oblong marble table attuned to the room’s diminutive proportions, and dining chairs by Luigi Caccia Dominioni for Azucena. The time-traveling mix also encompasses club chairs covered in Clarence House’s classic Jazz Age fabric Ellington, parchment-covered waterfall cocktail tables, an Oushak carpet, and a massive custom cabinet of cerused oak inspired by the work of Josef Hoffmann. The designer bathed the living room in Farrow & Ball’s Dead Salmon and Setting Plaster colors, creating a warm, inviting backdrop for an eclectic mélange of furnishings that features an 18th-century Flemish tapestry unexpectedly poised above a crisply tailored Milo Baughman sofa. “My goal was to give it a sense of depth and history, to build a narrative that reflects my sensibility as a designer as well as the way Jonathon and I want to live.”Ĭharming details can be spotted in the dining area. “It was really just a white box, a blank canvas,” Kenyon recalls. Deftly imbricated with color, pattern, texture, and furnishings of far-flung pedigree and provenance, the apartment strikes a delicate balance between old-school New York residential finery and contemporary decorative brio. ![]() Two years ago, he marshaled his broad experience in the design world and struck out on his own.Īs with many young designers, Kenyon’s most compelling calling card is his own home, a parlor-floor apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone, which he shares with his partner, production designer Jonathon Beck. Once the house was complete, the designer left the Jacobs orbit for in-house roles at Gachot Studios, the office of Kelly Behun (another AD100 designer), and Apparatus, where Kenyon served as a design director. “We spent years collecting, building, perfecting,” Kenyon says of the extraordinary assignment. When Jacobs purchased a town house in Greenwich Village roughly a decade ago, Kenyon settled into the role of client rep, working alongside the fashion guru and AD100 designers Thad Hayes, John Gachot, and the late Paul Fortune. ![]()
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