Bridge For Design Spring 2014 Bridge For Design Spring 2014 Issue | Page 130

B

efore you decide to decorate a house, a word of advice:
take a good, long look in the mirror. Liz Weinstien did,
and wasn’t pleased by what she saw. “I didn’t like it,” she
said,“but Miles convinced me to go with it, and as usual, he
was right.”
A word of explanation. She wasn’t scrutinising her own reflection.
Rather, she was looking at a towering wall of smoky, antiqued-mirror
panels that presided over the west side of the living room of the
Manhattan townhouse she and her husband, Steve, had purchased. At
first, and even second, glance, the panels seemed like an eyesore – a
sad yet sweet remnant of the way people used to live and decorate,
joining such erstwhile luxuries as the butler’s pantry and formal dining
rooms on the list of what people would just as soon do without today.
But Miles Redd, the young designer whom she charged with redoing
the place, looked at the expanses of silvery, obsolescent iridescence
and saw two things. First, as décor’s boy wonder is wont to do, he saw
himself, and second, he saw his client. “They’re one of my favourite
things about the house,” he says of the panels.
They ended up keeping the mirrors, channelling their old-school
Hollywood glamour for the rest of the house, nimbly demonstrating
Miles’ central design philosophy: don’t throw the baby out with the
bathwater. All too often, people come to a renovation with the words
‘gut job’ fixed in their minds – not only can you start fresh, but you can
also get exactly what you want.
In theory, that is. But Weinstein likes to embrace the past – this is
a woman who, the last time she went apartment shopping, ended up
buying the very same Upper East Side apartment she had grown up in.
But as her family expanded to include three sons, it became clear that
an upgrade was in order. ►

TOP: The tufted chaise by Oscar de le Renta for Century Furniture is upholstered in
Ralph Lauren Home’s Shelbourne Woven, the floor lamp is by Visual Comfort, and
the porcelain garden seat and rococo-style mirror are from Treillage.
RIGHT: The living room sofa is upholstered in Lee Jofa’s Rochelle Velvet, the side
chairs are covered in embroidered soutache by Penn & Fletcher.

130

Bridge for Design Spring 2014