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Emily del Bello Orchestrates a Quiet Sanctuary Inside an Art Deco Masterpiece

For a residence inside Walker Tower, the designer opted for a palette that largely whispers in rooms full of various textures and shapes

By Kathleen Hackett
Modern living room with beige sofas, round coffee table, art on cream walls, large windows, and a fireplace.
In the living room of a residence that designer Emily del Bello conceived inside New York’s Walker Tower, a Ron Gorchov painting neighbors a series of nature-inspired lithographs by Zao Wou Ki. Photo: Nicole Franzen

Like most enduring movements, the conversion of manufacturing and office buildings into residential spaces in New York began with artists. In the 1970s, the roster of names who illegally occupied the abandoned cast iron beauties in SoHo reads like a who’s who of the contemporary art world: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Donald Judd, Robert Rauschenberg. In the ensuing half century, dozens of former workplaces have become living spaces, transformed from corner offices, cubicles and production floors to some of the city’s most sought-after apartments. Among them, Walker Tower stands out.

Once a telephone switching center for the New York Telephone Company, the Art Deco building designed in 1929 by Ralph Thomas Walker—who was also the mastermind behind the now-converted 1 Wall Street, once the Irving Trust Bank)—is considered an architectural masterpiece. Meticulously transformed in 2013 into 47 luxury apartments, Walker Tower has more than its original intricate brickwork and fine ornamental detailing going for it; its 18-inch-thick walls, soaring ceilings, and oversized windows offered up those scarcest of urban commodities: quiet and light.

The living room’s cocktail table is topped with a rippling slab of white oak. Photo: Nicole Franzen
Minimalist dining room with modern table, chairs, and decorative vase on the table against a neutral-toned wall backdrop
Del Bello ornamented the dining room walls with boiserie and stained the chevron floors the color of honey. Photo: Nicole Franzen

So when interior designer Emily del Bello began designing a four-bedroom apartment in the tower for clients who were smitten by the space’s views and volumes, she was not about to squander the ineffable qualities that distinguished it from so many other luxury condominiums. Though the apartment was outdated, she took advantage of its “good bones and wonderful layout.” She kept the peace, so to speak, by choosing a palette that largely whispers. “Which is not to say that the space isn’t expressive,” del Bello says. “The rooms are full of various textures and shapes that animate the rooms.”

Shearling stools and cream-painted cabinetry conjure coziness in the kitchen. Photo: Nicole Franzen

Indeed, a tremulous white oak coffee table in the living room, with its live edge and rippling top, looking as if a stone was skipped along its surface, infuses the serene living room with just enough energy to keep it that way. Stools backed with that ultimate hygge hallmark—shearling—keep things cozy in the soaring kitchen, where walls and cabinets are painted the color of heavy cream. “We really transformed the kitchen, which started out as a plain white box with pre-fabricated set up,” del Bello explains. “The cabinets were stuck in the middle of the walls, which never works.”

Modern bedroom with beige tones, large windows, a tufted bed, elegant pendant light, and a cozy lounge chair.
In the primary bedroom, a Jan Ekselius chair and ottoman sit underneath a Cloud 37 chandelier by Apparatus. Photo: Nicole Franzen

She created a warm envelope in the minimalist dining room by staining the chevron floors the color of honey, and plastered over the plain white walls, then ornamented them with boiserie. She filled the room with just the necessities: a dining table, chairs, and a console for storage, all the better to soak in the light. Even the primary bedroom, as placid as it is awash in texture and color like sand and stone and lots of right angles, there is a scribble here—the Jan Eskelius chair and ottoman—and a splotch there—the Cloud 37 by Apparatus.

Luxurious dark-themed living room with velvet sectional sofa, built-in bookshelves, and a framed painting above.
A hand-painted jigsaw puzzle by Tyler Hayes for BDDW visually anchors the den; its sectional is upholstered in a long-piled linen velvet by Holly Hunt. Photo: Nicole Franzen

Del Bello didn’t shy away from adding color to the scheme; she just knew how and when to use it. The womb-like den, bathed in lime-washed navy-gray walls by Floepainting and fitted out with a sumptuous sectional upholstered in Holly Hunt’s long-piled linen velvet, is the perfect place for the couple and their school-age daughter to hang out. Such soothing surfaces make perfect backdrops for their art collection, the heart of which is the more than dozen lithographs by Chinese-French painter Zao Wou-Ki that hang over the living room sofa. “The wife spends a lot of time looking at art, so she has a point of view, which is a dream,” says art advisor Jessica Arb Danial.

Cozy bedroom with plush chair, footstool, bookshelves, and striped blinds overlooking a city skyline through a large window.
One of the residence’s four bedrooms. Photo: Nicole Franzen
The powder room. Photo: Nicole Franzen

This is a woman who is drawn to gesture and color, from the curved canvases of American abstract painter Ron Gorchov to the saturated works of Tyler Hayes. It’s all subtle, as is the designer’s nod to the Walker Tower’s Art Deco heritage. She introduced oversized box moldings with applied details in the living room that are suggestive of the period. Such subtlety is del Bello’s superpower—and it has rewarded her clients with a home that suits them perfectly.