september 2019 house garden 87Brooklyn’s cWB architects oversaw the renovation,
devising a floor plan that could walk that delicate
tightrope. They kept the traditional bones of the house
with stately mouldings and archways between rooms,
while opening it up to maximise the flow of light.
When it came time to decorate, there was never
a question in the couple’s mind. sylvana had met Jesse
carrier of carrier and company Interiors years earlier,
when she was an assistant to anna Wintour, a longtime
client of the designer’s.
‘I’ve always loved his sensibility,’ she says of the
country-chic style he and his wife, Mara Miller, are
known for. ‘he’s easy to work with,’ and, as a father
of two, ‘he gets the family thing.’ or, as Jesse explains:
‘We know what damage comes with having a herd of
elephants running up and down the stairs.’ For those,
he opted for a broadloom, polypropylene runner,
telling sylvana, ‘You’re going to thank me.’
The finished result is a high-low mix that looks
rich and layered but isn’t so precious that ‘the children
need to be sent to some obscure part of the house
to play,’ says Jesse. The designer shopped accessible
retail outlets, combining them with just enough
wow accents to lend a luxe feel. In the dining room,
the durretts splurged on a de gournay wallpaper
of climbing vines that has the effect of extending
the garden inside, and paired it with a relatively
inexpensive sisal that can easily be swapped out
‘after red wine and turkey,’ sylvana says. (It’s already
been replaced once.) For dinner parties, they can
host up to 24 in the dining room – 34 if they extend
the seating into the lacquered blue library by opening
the pocket doors (a ‘genius’ design detail sylvana
credits to the architects) and shifting the rose-velvet
sofa into the hallway. a gold-splattered calico
wallpaper on the library ceiling draws the eye up,
and, notes Jesse, is like a modern version of a frescoed
ceiling. ‘In such a confined space, it’s nice to be able
to enjoy that constellation,’ he says. sylvana adds:
‘It’s so cosy, and it’s where the bar is. My husband
has become quite a beer aficionado. People come
over and are like, “Tell me which brew you have
on tap this week.”’
upstairs in the master suite, a serene palette sets
the tone. There’s a deck overlooking the lush garden
designed by celebrated landscape architect Miranda
Brooks, another relationship sylvana forged during
her Vogue days. While the Maisonette owner now
peddles mini-sized fashion, she has a walk-in closet
that would do her alma mater proud. ‘My dream since
I was a little girl,’ she sighs, passing through the dressing
room, which is wrapped in wood-framed glass cabinetry.
‘I don’t even have enough clothes to fill it.’ she opens
a pair of doors to reveal completely empty racks – an
almost unheard-of predicament in new York city.