“We’ll simply repair it up a little bit bit.” That’s what Ashley Stark Kenner thought when she and husband Nick, founder and CEO of Simply Salad, purchased a city home on New York’s Higher East Aspect to make room for his or her rising household. The landmarked Nineteenth-century constructing had so much going for it—beneficiant dimensions, a deep yard, and, a rarity amongst city homes, numerous gentle. However at their first assembly with New York–primarily based Lichten Architects, speak shortly shifted to “intestine renovation.”

“The façade was the one factor that stayed,” Kenner says now, three years later. “For some time, we didn’t have a roof. We didn’t have a flooring. We dug out the basement, we added a prime flooring, we added terraces. If I confirmed you the earlier than and after, you’d be like, ‘What?’”

Because the senior vp of design and artistic director on the eight-decades-old textile titan Stark, she knew precisely what she wished. And with a completely clear slate, she didn’t need to compromise. “I had a imaginative and prescient, and I caught with it,” says Kenner, calling her aesthetic “laid-back, natural, beachy, a little bit bit French.”

Working carefully with Kenner, architects Andrew Friedman and Kevin Lichten created a flooring plan that functioned for household life and, as Friedman explains, “felt loftlike and fashionable however nonetheless like a standard city home.” That sensibility prolonged to the decor, spearheaded by New York agency Aman & Meeks (with a heavy hand from Kenner herself). —Hannah Martin

When two born-and-bred West Coasters relocated to New York, their objective was to carry the sunny environment of a life lived near the Pacific together with them. To stave off homesickness and keep true to their roots, they turned to New York–primarily based designer Younger Huh to inject breezy California vibes into probably the most unlikely of locations: a high-rise towering over certainly one of Manhattan’s most prized locales—Central Park. “For the reason that purchasers had been relocating, they requested that I preserve the design very gentle, shiny, and ethereal,” Huh says of the couple, who moved so as to accommodate the husband’s job in finance.” The tip end result? A good-looking Park Avenue pad that completely blends California spirit with a dose of New York drama.