The Brooklyn Trust Company Building at the corner of Pierrepont and Clinton was designed and built in 1913 in the Italian High Renaissance style, modeled after the Palazzo della Gran Guardia in Verona. It was recently converted to luxury condominiums, and Lawton Mull were asked to decorate a spacious model.
We were inspired to set a stage that a bohemian Italian aristocrat of the 1960s would have been utterly at ease in. At the same time, we wanted to offer perfect serenity to a family coming in from the bustling streets of Downtown Brooklyn. So we made a marriage of the modern aesthetics we love best–Italian, Japanese, Scandinavian. Here are a few of the rooms.
In the spacious master bedroom, we punctuated a wool and linen bed with a pair of vintage Danish lamps which spoke of Venice…and an Edo-period Japanese screen in gold leaf and pigments.
The Swedish Art Deco rosewood commode and crystal Orrefors mirror designed by Carl Fagerlund gleam like jewels. The cracked marble jardiniere is a Grand Tour object.
The bedroom comfortably contained a sitting area, which we furnished with Spanish leather armchairs, a vintage Paradiset sofa by the great Kerstin Hörlin-Holmquist, an Alessandro Albrizzi glass and acrylic coffee table, and a lovely Turkish kilim. We fashioned a modern artwork out of a painted canvas and a 19th century Japanese pawnbroker’s wrapping paper. The sculpture, Arcadian Specimens, is by Lawton Mull.
The standing lamp is an iconic design by Isamu Noguchi, still produced, and the curtains were fabricated from Maharam’s ethereal “Talc.”
In the living room, we extended this neutral palette while introducing vibrant organic hues.
We upholstered a rare Arne Norell sofa in Maharam’s “Pressed Linen,” and placed it against the woodland backdrop of a pair of Lawton Mull Moss Follies. Other collectible pieces in the room included a Romeo Rega vitrine table…
a Poul Volther wingback chair, a Warren Platner dining set with the chairs recovered in Maharam’s Alpaca velvet, an aerial photograph of Roden Crater taken by James Turrell…
A Borge Mogensen spokeback sofa in its original leather, and a lamp we love by Michael Anastassiades.
We fashioned a guest room with a worn boro, small landscape paintings, and an antique American coverlet…
Vitsoe shelves hold sculptural objects, a collection of art and design books and back issues of World of Interiors.
To us, every detail in an assemblage has to be in conversation with everything else. The ultimate goal is for a kind of domestic equipoise.
This installation was designed, styled and photographed by Lawton Mull. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to visit the model, or learn more about any of its objects and furnishings.
