If you visit my living room on a Saturday evening, you’ll be as likely to find Legos on thefloor as Champagne glasses on the table, and our dog will definitely be draped over one of the armchairs. A living room is usually the biggest and best-looking (not to mention most expensive!) room in any house, and to me that means you should use it most. Listen, I love beautiful things, but function really does come first, especially here in New York City, where every square foot is at a premium. If my husband, daughters, and I can’t be nourished by the beauty of a room, what’s the point?
I had dreamed of living in Gramercy Park ever since I moved from Texas to New York for college. When we found this apartment, we felt so lucky, not just for its location but for its layout, too, which is formal, with a separate entry hall, gallery, kitchen, living room, and dining room. It reminded me of the classic apartments I’d worked on when I started out as a designer at Bunny Williams’s firm. People associate formal layouts with fancy living, but to me separate rooms work so well for a busy, modern family. For starters, I can close the kitchen door when we entertain and forget the dishes until tomorrow. I also love that each room has a distinct character for a different purpose and time of day. There’s space for us to each get away and do our work, as well as space to be together.
I tend to lean on color in setting the rooms apart. For instance, the chocolate brown in the study doesn’t need sunlight to look great and makes the space work as an evening room, a TV room, and an intimate retreat (and it also doubles as a guest room, thanks to a lightweight, movable coffee table). In the dining room, which also gets less natural light, a grid of hand-screened color-block prints brings radiance, like a wall of psychedelic windows. Still, I look at color all day long, so I wanted a creamy white bedroom as my refuge.
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I love history, but I dislike pastiche, so one thing I aim for in all of my projects is to make classic elements feel inviting, fresh, and new. The entry-hall walls recall 19th-century pastoral murals brought up-to-date with a black-and-white palette and brightened by bursts of sunshine yellow from the artwork and upholstery. The white walls, tonal carpet, and punchy green curtains in the living room give the 19th-century American paintings and Louis XVI chairs a light, modern presence.
Cece Barfield Thompson's Gramercy Park Apartment
And I try to give pieces space to breathe. Throughout the apartment, I’ve streamlined the layouts and created open space wherever possible. (Similarly, I find that placing a whimsical object against an austere background—like the fringe on the library sofa or the ornate mirrors in the bedrooms—allows the eye to wander and be intrigued without feeling overwhelmed.) I have a china closet—a true luxury in a small apartment—that makes it easy to keep entertaining supplies on hand but out of sight. I love setting a captivating table; it’s like a decorating project in microcosm, with pretty layers and playful details. I always include little touches to put people at ease, like place cards, dishes of nuts (for fidgety guests), and open bottles of wine so no one has to ask. Café chairs and sofa-ticking upholstery give the room an easygoing, garden air.
Everything here has a happy association: made by or sourced from someone I admire. And in nearly every room are details that bring the park’s lush character indoors, from floral, bird, and tree motifs to shades of green and blue, all reminders that Gramercy Park has given us so much more than inspiration and great views. It’s truly a neighborhood. We have friends across the way who host musicales where a Met tenor might be warming up, and the park itself is like a backyard for all the surrounding buildings. Connection, it seems, is everywhere. Indoors and out, I feel like I’m surrounded by friends.
VERANDA This article originally appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of VERANDA.
VERANDA This article originally appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of VERANDA.
This feature originally appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of VERANDA. Interior Design by Cece Barfield Thompson; architecture by David Hottenroth; photography by Thomas Loof; produced by Dayle Wood; as told to Celia Barbour.
