Brian McCarthy Creates a Dazzling Jewel Box in the Sky Filled with Artisanal Details

What’s the most seductive spot for cocktails in New York City?

It might just be a bar that designer Brian McCarthy recently created on an upper floor of a Park Avenue high-rise. The cocooning room, its arched floor-to-ceiling window framing a glittering downtown view, is lined in gold-dappled, coral-lacquer paneling with insets of swirling, smoky resin embellished with bronze details.

Descending from the gilded barrel-vaulted ceiling is a Drift light sculpture whose intricate bronze lattice contains delicate, light-emitting dandelion seed heads. The curved bar, topped with marble and trimmed in brass, features a marquetry front of dyed wood veneers composed in a painterly feather pattern. As refined as anything conjured during Art Deco’s heyday, this jewel-box space exudes echoes of earlier eras but also feels decidedly fresh.

“It’s very sumptuous, very glam,” says McCarthy, whose distinguished portfolio attests to the fact that he knows a thing or two about glamour. He devised the room for repeat clients who love to entertain family and friends. Lucky them.

The bar is just one highlight of a duplex apartment McCarthy masterminded for the couple, whose close-knit clan includes three adult children who are now having kids of their own. A decade earlier, McCarthy designed the family’s Long Island home, an “18th-century-inspired, very neoclassical house,” he explains. “And I wanted this, with their blessing, to be a very different experience.”

His aim wasn’t to abandon classicism entirely but to strip it down and give it a more contemporary feel, with Italian postwar architect Carlo Scarpa, who was known for his obsessively detailed modern interiors, as a primary inspiration. “When you really get into it, the level of detail and the finishes we chose are off the charts,” McCarthy says of the three-year project, which he oversaw in collaboration with architects Alexandre Gamelas & Catarina Santos Arquitectos and Andrew V. Giambertone & Associates, Architects. “But you have to really look. Nothing is in your face.”

That is not to say the apartment lacks for high-impact moments, starting with the double-height stair hall. McCarthy transformed the entry into an elegant elliptical shape, while replacing the staircase with one that has a more graceful sweep and a balustrade that plays off the marble floor he designed in a “sort of Renaissance spirit, with the geometries blown up to make it much more modern,” he explains. For this residence the clients committed to focusing on modern and contemporary art, and one of El Anatsui’s shimmering tapestries made from cast-off bottle caps is mounted above the stairs, helping to set the tone. A boldly faceted Hervé Van der Straeten chandelier and a curvaceous Wendell Castle concrete chair, both works of art in their own rights, add sculptural presence.

When it came to the apartment’s furnishings, apart from a number of choice vintage pieces, everything was custom designed by McCarthy and his team or commissioned from one of his go-to artisans. In the sprawling, sun-splashed living room, the mix features one distinctive piece after another, from midcentury Gio Ponti armchairs and a 1980 Philippe Hiquily biomorphic side table to a Campana Brothers Brazilian Baroque lounge chair and chaise, the latter specially designed for this project.

An avid collector of contemporary art himself, McCarthy assisted in guiding the clients’ art acquisitions, accompanying them to galleries and fairs such as Art Basel in Switzerland, where they purchased the Glenn Brown painting of a twisting, statuesque female figure that hangs prominently in the living room. “That was the first piece of art that we bought, and it led to every other decision,” he says, noting that the couple is drawn to figurative works, including the more abstracted Wifredo Lam canvas displayed opposite the painting by Brown.

A number of rooms throughout the apartment don’t really call for art, thanks to decor that delivers its own visual oomph. Take, for example, the dining room, where McCarthy enlisted Paris studio Mériguet-Carrère to create wraparound plaster wall panels with tropical birds, trees, and flowers carved in relief. “It eliminates the need for, beyond the furniture, anything else that is art,” says McCarthy. This is especially true with one of Ingo Maurer’s fantastical chandeliers with exploding porcelain plates and flatware suspended over the custom lacquer table.

In the library, which features a handkerchief-vaulted ceiling inspired by John Soane’s 19th-century dining room, McCarthy clad the walls in cognac-hued lacquer paneling inset with sunburst-like expanses of straw marquetry. “The room’s lacquer is Jean Dunand inspired with the warm buttery caramel colors,” says the designer, who also outfitted the space with a dazzling mantelpiece made of cubic pyrite.

The emphasis on exquisite detail continues on the upper floor, which McCarthy completely reconfigured, giving over nearly two-thirds of the area to the primary suite. In addition to his and her baths and dressing rooms, there’s a home office for the husband and a lounge that has a sitting area as well as a desk for the wife. Anchoring that space is a series of atmospheric lacquer panels created by artist Nancy Lorenz using indigo-toned lacquer speckled with mother-of-pearl and silver leaf, while cloudlike Ayala Serfaty lights float above.

“It’s a rich apartment, but there’s a human quality to the feeling you get, being so warm and so welcoming,” says McCarthy. “Every room is one where you feel comfortable sitting down anywhere.” An exception, of sorts, is the lovely bar, which the designer says was conceived primarily as a place to mingle during cocktail parties. Though McCarthy did furnish it with a plush, scallop-back banquette. Just in case anybody swoons.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2023 Winter Issue under the headline “Everything Is Illuminated.” Subscribe to the magazine.

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Brian McCarthy Reimagines a Manhattan Residence as a Dazzling Jewel Box in the Sky

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A Glenn Brown painting, mounted above a Philippe Anthonioz console table, is given pride of place in the living room of a Manhattan apartment designed by Brian McCarthy in collaboration with architects Alexandre Gamelas & Catarina Santos Arquitectos and Andrew V. Giambertone & Associates, Architects. Arrayed around a Fredrikson Stallard acrylic table from David Gill Gallery are a vintage Gio Ponti armchair, a 1980 Philippe Hiquily table, a custom sofa and armchair by Jonas, and a Campana Brothers mohair-upholstered sculptural chaise.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

Modern glamour gets a Baroque twist in this Manhattan residence by Brian McCarthy, who furnished the living room with a matching chair and chaise by the Campana Brothers. “The bronze frame is made up of hundreds of pieces arranged like marquetry and soldered together,” says McCarthy. Sculptural Gio Ponti chairs and a canvas by Wifredo Lam add to the alluring mix.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

An exuberant painting by renowned British artist Glenn Brown, who recently opened his own museum called The Brown Collection in London, hangs in the living room. “His body of work is very contemporary, but there’s an art-historical aspect in the manner in which he paints,” says McCarthy. Wild Horses, a 2007 work, illustrates his method of distorting classical motifs.

Photograph by © Glenn Brown, Rob McKeever, Courtesy of Gagosian

A Frederik Molenschot chandelier hangs in the vaulted library, which features paneling with straw marquetry by Ateliers Lison de Caunes, a Kam Tin pyrite mantelpiece, and curtains in a Claremont fabric embroidered by Lesage. An Hervé Van der Straeten cocktail table is joined by a round side table by Mattia Bonetti and a Galerie Diurne rug.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

In the bar, Atelier Mériguet-Carrère applied gold leaf to the ceiling and crafted the lacquer woodwork; Based Upon fashioned the panels inset with resin. A Drift light sculpture hovers overhead, while Hervé Van der Straeten sconces frame a painting by Marc Chagall.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

Composed like a jewel box, the luminous bar area features a gilded ceiling by Atelier Mériguet-Carrère and a stunning Drift chandelier made with real dandelion seeds. Anchoring the space is intricate cladding by British studio SilverLining. “It’s very multilayered,” says McCarthy. Additionally, British firm Based Upon created the sophisticated wall panels, which are composed of resin and bronze inset into lacquer. “It’s a yummy, delicious space that’s super sexy.”

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

An El Anatsui tapestry overlooks the staircase that McCarthy redesigned, and the Hervé Van der Straeten chandelier plays off the marble floor, on which a concrete chair by Wendell Castle rests.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

A tapestry by Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, who recently unveiled a monumental commission at London’s Tate Modern, makes a powerful statement in the entry hall. The artist is revered for meticulously weaving recycled materials such as bottle caps into stunning wall works (like this 2016 piece, Trova). “The space needed something textural and asymmetrical to break it from the walls,” says McCarthy.

Photograph by © El Anatsui, Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Wrapped in decorative plaster panels by Atelier Mériguet-Carrère, the dining room is outfitted with Pollaro Custom Furniture chairs and a Vosges lacquer table that McCarthy enlivened with a François-Xavier Lalanne centerpiece beneath an Ingo Maurer chandelier.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

The dining room walls are sheathed in elegant plaster carvings conjured by Atelier Mériguet-Carrère in Paris. “It references Armand-Albert Rateau and the beautiful bath he did for Lanvin,” explains McCarthy of the bespoke, exotic design. “We wanted to capture light and shadow in here.”

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

Artist Nancy Lorenz created lacquer panels embellished with mother-of-pearl and silver leaf for the primary suite’s sitting room, where Ayala Serfaty ceiling lights float above a custom-designed L-shaped sofa by Jouffre and a rounded Elizabeth Garouste chair. The desk by W. P. Sullivan features Atelier Viollet straw marquetry and is topped by a lamp made with an Edouard Cazaux vase from the 1930s; the rug is by Beauvais Carpets.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

Mark Brazier-Jones pendants dangle above a velvet-clad Elizabeth Garouste chaise and a Jallu Ébénistes vanity in the wife’s dressing room, which McCarthy accented with verre églomisé details by Miriam Ellner.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

The primary suite’s bespoke bed is dressed in Vis-a-Vis bedding and bordered by Alasdair Cooke nightstands and Barbara Palatin-Doyle lamps from Liz O’Brien; the chandelier is by Robert Goossens from Maison Rapin.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

Brooklyn talent Misha Kahn devised the primary bedroom’s custom table using a 1,400-pound hunk of South African rose quartz as a sculptural base. “The wife loves crystals, and I share that love,” says McCarthy. “The way Misha works the bronze over stone feels so natural and organic.”

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian

“I’m a marble freak,” admits McCarthy, who deployed two richly veined varieties from BAS Stone for a powder room’s walls and flooring. “I wanted the stone to be the artwork.” He also tapped Fornasetti to create the lacquer cabinet, a nod to the classical design preference of the clients.

Photograph by Francesco Lagnese, Styled by Howard Christian