9th Avenue

We didn't have a buyer yet, but we already had an idea of who this house might become a home for: a young couple, or maybe a young woman on her own, possibly with a child, and most likely with a dog.

So from the very first step inside, it needed to feel warm, not just neutral enough to make a sale.

The house sold before construction was even finished, just from the drawings. When the buyers arrived, they brought their own vision and we adjusted the house to fit it. A house that started out designed for no one in particular ended up feeling personal after all.

Not every house can afford a wall in the middle of it. Instead, the staircase acts as a screen. It is made of black perforated metal. From the side it looks solid, but from the front it appears open.

You can see the steps, light passes through, and the entryway remains a single open space.

Nothing here is trying to be inoffensive. The floor changes underfoot at the door, so you feel the moment you are properly inside, and a marble plinth greets you instead of a console table.

Somewhere to drop keys, shake off the rain, and still see light coming through the house.

The kitchen is the piece meant to be remembered. One sapele wall, one marble slab with everything happening inside it, appliances hidden in the joinery so it reads as furniture rather than equipment.

The living room answers it quietly, wrapping the fireplace in the same wood. Close enough that whoever is cooking is still part of the conversation.

The wood comes back upstairs, this time as a full headboard wall with a cove of light above it. Nothing in your eyeline from the bed, no fixture overhead, just a warm line across the ceiling.

Carpet underfoot, teal and sage in the textiles. The room reads calm rather than temporary.

The primary bath holds a tub, a walk-in shower and a vanity long enough for two people to get ready at the same time.

Gray stone runs floor to ceiling so the walls stay calm, the shower sits flush on a linear drain, and the light is soft enough for six in the morning.

A lapis blue basin cut from a single slab sits at the center of the powder room, with terrazzo on both the floor and the walls around it.

The shared bathroom goes green: olive fluted tile and a bronze shower frame, with a window that keeps the space bright through the day.