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Nov 06, 2024

Step Inside a Lavish Upper East Side Home Reimagined With Bold Moves | Architectural Digest

All products featured on Architectural Digest are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. When Ryan

All products featured on Architectural Digest are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

When Ryan Korban’s clients invited him to consider possibilities for “a very specific home” located on the Upper East Side, he understood the two possible general trajectories. “You’re into buying it because you love it, or you’re buying it because you’re gutting the whole thing,” Korban says. Fortunately, this case fit the former scenario, providing the New York City–based designer with an extraordinary historic canvas to apply his signature bold moves. Korban appreciated that “the homeowners are young, but they love that traditional layout,” he says about the family of five. “I love that old romance, but then adding an edge to it.”

Originally constructed as two row houses in 1899 and conjoined in 1914 into one lavish five-story residence centered around a courtyard with a carriage house, the property presented a particular set of challenges. “I call it de-decorating,” Korban explains of his process. Korban began by considering the home’s original floor plan and materiality while modifying the purposes of certain spaces. “We wanted that character. Ryan immediately got that and made sure to preserve it,” the homeowner says. “He was able to create a perfect flow working with what was here.”

“They had the right messaging and vibes,” the homeowner comments about the design team. Korban was thrilled to have “this amazing palette to do all my favorite pieces and edit it down in one place.” Revisited furnishings and accessories include Eric Schmitt’s Anneau chandeliers and a Patrick Naggar lounge chair.

Layout wise, “we liked the idea of a closed kitchen, a proper dining room, a proper library,” Korban says. He then leaned into his love of what he calls interstitial non-rooms. What previously had been the formal dining room at the ground floor level, for instance, became the expanded entrance hallway. “It’s [like] the gorgeous lobby in a hôtel particulier. It’s the room that I promise you the moment after working all day, you’re going to sit in,” he recalls of how he sold his clients on the concept. Korban took additional subtle cues from his luxury retail portfolio, in which furnishings make strategic appearances in boutique lobbies and near fitting rooms. He selected favorite pieces including a figure eight-shaped woven leather frame Bottega Veneta mirror, sculptural Eric Schmitt lighting and artworks, and a scramble lamp by Mauro Fabbro sourced from Alexandre Biaggi in Paris, along with Jean Royère’s pleasingly plump Polar Bear lounge chairs that flank the fireplace.

On the second level where the relocated formal dining room now sits, Korban reimagined a compelling sequence of multiple non-rooms. The dining room leads directly into the library lounge, where he transformed formerly dark-stained wood surfaces following “agonizing back and forth” conversations and painstaking sample testing to get it right. Gothic-inspired moldings, stained glass, and another fireplace compose a relatively baroque backdrop for vintage Werner Platner for Knoll chairs. Korban designed integrated bronze shelving as a contrast, “but I also feel like it complements it. The moldings are pretty aggressive in their own way, so it works together.”

“I like to do things with color. I just don’t do it that much,” Korban says of the blue room, which joins a series of surprising and contiguous spaces he calls non-rooms. Circulo Orange by Manuel Mérida pops against the immersive backdrop of Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue with a custom sofa. Carpeting is custom Le Manach for Pierre Frey. Gerrit Rietveld’s angular classic Utrecht chair for Cassina is upholstered in Loro Piana fabric. Alabaster bowl pendant from Vaughan Designs.

In this area, hidden paneling contains the entrance to what Korban dubs the color-saturated “blue room,” with a foundation of bespoke Le Manach Pierre Frey wall-to-wall carpet. “If I’m going to have a house with so many rooms, I want to do a room with color and print,” Korban notes. Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue “feels very royal, and the house certainly has that aesthetic.” French doors then open onto a luxurious light-filled solarium with a bench seat and accessories swathed in Loro Piana cashmere fabrics. Korban likens the flow to “a Russian doll of rooms.” There’s plenty of privacy in the form of distinct parents’ and kids’ quarters on the third and fourth levels, respectively, plus the fifth-floor conservatory dedicated to fun and play.

The interior corridor lined with mirrors and Rose Uniacke sconces links the main house with the carriage house and continues Korban’s newly introduced chromatic vocabulary. Despite its pristine condition, “the house was heavy before,” so the designer and his clients landed on a white-on-white scheme with lacquered ceilings as a tool to “breathe this whole new life into it.” The carriage house functions as an expanded multipurpose living room of sorts, with a generously sized sectional Cassina sofa. Korban describes programming this interior as putting “everything in one lofty feeling [space]. So it satiated any appetite for wanting an open plan sort of room.” Here, different eras converge beneath the vaulted corners thanks to striking works by Richard Prince and Damien Hirst.

The project smoothly gelled over approximately four years “because the clients were so on board with what I do, and because the property was the kind of property that I love,” Korban says. Juxtapositions between old and new are on view in the carriage house, where works by Damien Hirst and Richard Prince mingle with richly paneled walls and vaulted niches. A Miloe sectional sofa by Piero Lissoni for Cassina is conducive to large group gatherings. Custom plaster chandelier is by Bourgeois Boheme. Garonne sconces are from Korban’s collection for RH.

Putting this piece of New York City grandeur into a fresh context was a personal retrospective for the designer himself too. The final result is “all the things that I’ve always wanted to use together,” Korban comments, pointing to favorites such as Eric Schmitt’s ring-shaped Anneau chandeliers, Liaigre furnishings and lamps, and pieces from Korban’s own furniture line. Over the past four-plus years the designer has spent ushering this home into its next chapter, he’s reconciled the shifting nature of how spaces and functionality are valued. Korban adds, “It’s okay to be a little bit impractical sometimes.”

“This is a project where I get to use all the things that I’ve always wanted to use together,” designer Ryan Korban says about the elaborate Upper East Side home he dramatically updated for a family of five. The former dining room at the ground level now contains an entrance that Korban envisioned as a relaxing transitional space with table and stools by Liaigre, a figure-eight-shaped woven leather frame Bottega Veneta mirror placed over the fireplace, Eric Schmitt lighting, and a Mauro Fabbro Scramble lamp, and Jean Royère Polar Bear chairs. “My rooms might seem like there’s a lot of stone and they’re hard, but there’ll always be some kind of cozy seating,” he comments.

Korban added to the existing Versailles parquet in the main kitchen to further blend sensibilities. “In a house that’s traditional, I really love when you have a super sleek kitchen,” he notes about the Poliform system and extensive Arabescato marble-clad surfaces.

The pantry on the first floor features Poliform cabinetry and a folding Bazane stool by Liaigre.

Pierre Frey fabric. Korban designed the oversized custom dining table. The pendant is by Eric Schmitt and the window treatments are by Pietro Scminelli.

The curved stairwell leads from the second floor to the primary suite with surfaces awash in custom Marmorino plaster applied by PB Paints. Korban paired a custom table with a Liaigre stool.

Regarding the decision to lighten the wood detailing in the home, Korban proceeded with caution. “You gently do it, because once you go too far, you can’t go back,” he explains. A pair of Easy Chairs by Warren Platner for Knoll make for a mod moment by the library lounge fireplace. “They felt right, because they felt like such a classic,” Korban notes. The bronze-clad shelving adds another striking contrast. Sconces are by Ozone.

New objects were selected with an eye to “feel more antique, so that the house feels more collected than necessarily decorated,” Korban says. The stools are from the designer’s collection. The bench seat is upholstered in Dedar fabrics. Table lamp is Liaigre, the statement floor lamp is by Eric Schmitt. Window shades are by Pietro Seminelli.

The warm, retreat-like primary suite is located on the third floor. Korban designed a custom chest and curved sofa wrapped in Dedar bouclé. Cotton velvet by Dedar softens the walls beneath the dentil and crown moldings. Loro Piana textile-covered Ryan Korban collection Basq chair and Liaigre side table. A painting by Olivia Sterling hangs above the fireplace.

The primary bathroom is outfitted with an edited material palette that includes a Belgian Blue limestone vanity and Lefroy Brooks fixtures.

Restrained Ralph Lauren fabric in the children’s room on the fourth floor plays against the home’s original classical vocabulary. Bedding by Kassatex.

Korban transformed the bathrooms with streamlined contemporary updates. Lefroy Brooks faucet.

A mirror-lined corridor with plaster and internally gilded Rose Uniacke sconces echoes the old-world feeling and connects the main house to the multifunctional carriage house.

The solarium is a refuge from the activity of Manhattan as well as the continual bustle of life with three kids. Travertine end table is from Blend Interiors, sconces are Rose Uniacke. Korban likens the luxurious Loro Piano cashmere and cashmere-shearling blend fabrics to “a really elegant little sweater.”

A climbing wall in the gym situated beneath the conservatory on the fifth level keeps the young family active.

Amalfi armchairs by Janus et Cie complement classic detailing, such as tumbled marble pavers, in the landscaped central courtyard.