In a Manhattan apartment designed by Robert Couturier, the entrance hall features bronze-and-crystal light fixtures by Hervé Van der Straeten and custom-made benches upholstered in a Prelle velvet; the silk curtains are custom embroidered. The boiseries and wall moldings throughout the apartment are by Féau & Cie, and the flooring is Versailles parquet.FACING PAGE: In the living room, the canapé à confident is Louis XV and the bergères are Louis XVI; the cocktail table is by Mattia Bonetti, the stool is by Michel Boyer, the sconces are 1950s Italian, and the rug is by Diurne. See Resources. t ra n s l at e d f r o m t h e f r e n c h f or a high-style Manhattan couple, decorator robert couturier creates a francophile fantasy both classic and bold Text by Nancy Hass · Photography by William Abranowicz Produced by Anita Sarsidi ED1111_Parker.indd 166 9/14/11 4:51 PM The financier’s wife wanted French—very French. She and her hus- requires a bit of gardening. Housed in a 1920 building where apart- band had given up their Park Avenue prewar duplex in order to move ments rarely change hands, the place hadn’t been touched since the to a vast, majestic apartment on Fifth Avenue. The old place had been 1970s. It contained dark paneling and dreary finishes. And while it had done in fine traditional style years ago, but the couple now wanted huge rooms, several of them more than 30 feet wide, the ceilings something extraordinary, a home that would work, the financier ex- weren’t particularly high. So creating intimacy was a challenge. plained, “with our evolving lifestyle”—which meant lots of parties and “We stripped it bare,” says Robert Couturier. “It was a blank canvas.” dinners, and time with their children. Couturier is the architect and designer people call, no matter where But to say that the nearly 9,000-square-foot apartment needed some they live, when they have virtually unlimited means and want a home work was like saying that Central Park, which lies outside its windows, with aesthetic integrity and a sense of European history. 167 ED1111_Parker.indd 167 9/14/11 4:51 PM In the living room, a sofa by Ueli Berger is flanked by a pair of Eugene Printz chairs and faces a pair of 1970s French Plexiglas chairs; the bronze light fixtures are by Hervé Van der Straeten, the mahogany cabinet is Louis XVI, and a Philippe Hiquily floor lamp stands behind a 1740s Louis XV duchesse en bateau. See Resources. ED1111_Parker.indd 168 9/14/11 4:51 PM 169 ED1111_Parker.indd 169 9/14/11 4:51 PM Early on, Couturier took the clients to Paris, where the designer had grown up in an aristocratic Jewish family with “a very deep sense of culture,” he says. He wanted to show the wife “what ‘French’ really means.” To that end, he led the couple to the Musée des Arts Decoratifs and the Louvre. But their most revelatory visit was to the museum that was once the home of Moïse de Camondo. The belle epoque banker’s collection of 18th-century furniture and objets d’art is preserved in the mansion he partly modeled on the Petit Trianon in Versailles. (Couturier studied at the design school established in the home after Camondo’s death in 1935.) “Seeing it with Robert,” recalls the wife, “made me realize how you can hold on to the past and still move forward.” Couturier also took them to Féau & Cie, the venerable curator and fabricator of boiseries and the kind of plaster paneling that distinguish- es many 18th-century interiors. That visit helped the couple decide to cover many of the walls of their New York apartment in elaborate panel- ing of wood and plaster and to paint them in subtle variations of white. With the floors, made from Versailles parquet, this created a highly detailed but neutral background for their lushly upholstered and boldly colored furnishings. The effect is dazzling. There are plenty of Régence and rococo pieces, but everything is done with such a light hand that the space feels unexpectedly airy. The wife was adamant that colored wall surfaces be used to form a contrast with the subtle shadings of the paneling. “I wanted the colors to be pure,” she says. “No muted taupe variations.” She oversaw the pig- ments, mixed by Féau’s craftsmen. Now her office is “very Dior, lots of gray and pink,” she says, and the study is a handsome Hermès orange. 170 elledecor.com ED1111_Parker.indd 170 9/14/11 4:52 PM A pair of 1760s Louis XVI bergères à la reine upholstered in a Prelle silk velvet flanks a 1950s French side table in the living room; the Louis XVI chair is uphol- stered in a silk from Donghia. FACING PAGE, FROM TOP: Stainless steel tables by Ron Arad in the dining room are surrounded by Charles Hollis Jones chairs from the ’70s; the sconces are 1940s Italian, the ’30s light fixture is by Eugene Printz, and the plaster ceiling is original. A Eugene Printz cabinet from the ’40s. See Resources. ED1111_Parker.indd 171 9/14/11 4:52 PM In the study, a Ring cocktail table by Garouste & Bonetti is surrounded by a pair of painted- wood Louis XVI chairs upholstered in silk velvet, a Felix Aublet armchair upholstered in cowhide from Edelman Leather, a 1980s floor lamp by Studio Tetrarch, and a sofa covered in a Chapas Textiles mohair bouclé; the Jean Royère chande- lier is from the ’50s, and the curtains are of a Clarence House silk. See Resources. 172 ED1111_Parker.indd 172 9/14/11 4:52 PM ED1111_Parker.indd 173 9/14/11 4:52 PM A FontanaArte light fixture from the 1950s and a ’30s glass desk by René-André Coulon in the wife’s office; the crystal side table is by Martin Szekely, the gilded chairs are Louis XVI, and the rug is by the Rug Company. FACING PAGE: In the husband’s dressing room, a custom-made sofa is upholstered in a Lee Jofa fabric and dressed with a Pratesi quilt; the cocktail table is by Hervé Van der Straeten, and the chair, floor lamp, and ’40s desk are all by Jacques Adnet. See Resources. ED1111_Parker.indd 174 9/14/11 4:52 PM Couturier took them on a second visit to Paris, to shop for furniture, The challenge was to create intimate and flexible spaces that flowed, much of it from the 18th century, that would be a natural fit with the few says the wife. “We didn’t want the usual place, with a few sofas around pieces they were bringing from their previous residence. “By then the a central cocktail table. We wanted to be able to change the layout to ideas were really strong and they had gained confidence,” he says. suit the different events in our lives.” The living room has several seating Their new purchases, including many chairs and cabinets with a pedi- areas that can be moved and reconfigured, including one dominated by gree, are boldly mixed with modern furniture and lighting, a mélange a Louis XV canapé à confident and a Mattia Bonetti cocktail table. The that is Couturier’s forte. (The designer is a fan of midcentury French spare dining room, with its two stainless steel tables by Ron Arad, can talents such as Jacques Adnet and Jean-Michel Frank, as well as con- accommodate large sit-down dinners as well as casual gatherings. temporary designers like Hervé Van der Straeten.) “You can’t get stuck “In many ways, the apartment is essentially French, without any kind in a period,” he says. “You have to know inside what is really good of cliché and without being mired in the past,” says Couturier. “And about things, and what unifies them in a deep way.” that is the definition of good design.” elledecor.com 175 ED1111_Parker.indd 175 9/14/11 4:52 PM.