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Amazing Art Deco Apartment

by habituallychic

02 . 28 . 21

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think the mark of a great designer is someone who can make me like a design style that is not my personal favorite. Interior designer Martin Brûlé has created the chicest Art Deco abode in a building that did not have many redeeming interior architectural details apart from the casement windows.

According to The New York Times where it was recently featured, the building itself though is “one of the city’s understated architectural gems, designed in 1929 by the prominent New York architects Raymond Hood and Kenneth Murchison. Originally intended to offer residential and studio spaces for Midtown’s burgeoning community of artists, it consists of twin structures built across the street from each other with Art Deco-style facades of limestone, brick and steel.”

I found the original floorplan for the apartment online and it looks like the living room which they called studio is exactly the same with the exception of the small kitchen that was moved to along the back wall.

You might know Martin Brûlé as the designer who helped Nellie Diamond decorate her Hill House Home store on Bleecker Street.

When I was looking to see if there were any original photos of the apartment online, similar units I saw were boring white boxes. I appreciate how Martin brought so much warmth to the space through the mix of materials and textures.

The furniture in the top photo and this photo include, “a French Art Deco armchair, a Maurice Jallot cocktail table and a Jean-Michel Frank sofa from Ecart International. By the window, a Kazuhide Takahama table from the 1980s, a French Art Deco sycamore screen and a Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret LC4 chaise from Cassina.”

“In the main living space, a Carlo Bugatti Mosque chair beside an Art Deco secretaire.” I love how the apartment is not cluttered which makes each pieces stand out.

“In the dining area, a Josef Albers painting from 1948 hangs above a Karl Springer parchment stool.”

“Brûlé tucked a Smeg oven and a Miele cooktop in a closet near the kitchen, and styled it with a drawing by Pablo Picasso, vintage Van Day Truex for Baccarat crystal and floor-to-ceiling wool curtains.” Many New Yorkers eat out or order in so small kitchens are not an issue.

The bedroom wasn’t included in the piece but I found one photo of the bedroom on Instagram. “He hid the two bedrooms’ scuffed parquet floors with velvety wool carpet — chocolate brown in one room and creamy ivory in the other — and painted the walls to match.”

There’s a small balcony accessed from the living room where I assume this photo was taken. It gives you an idea of the size of the apartment buildings on each side of the street.

“When Brûlé first saw the apartment, a 1,300-square-foot space on the 14th floor, the entrance was a cramped passageway that led to a kitchen covered in Formica (“very ’90s Home Depot,” he says) followed by a small sitting room intercepted by awkward soffits. But at the end of that sitting room was a single large casement window that, if you stood at the correct angle, perfectly framed the iconic steel spire of the Chrysler Building, built at the same time as the Beaux Arts. Brûlé signed the lease that day.”

Martin Brûlé has done an amazing job with this apartment and I can’t wait to see how his career progresses. I definitely think he’s one to watch.