A garden isn't the only part of a property that can burst into bloom. Sometimes a house emerges out of dormancy with a flourishing to rival that of any late-spring rose garden.
Such is the case with a recent Upper East Side project by rising star Lucy Doswell for clients Maegan and Owen Boger. Elements of the decor, including some of the Bogers’ extensive art collection, lay in literal darkness—stored away for more than a decade—before coming to life on the townhouse’s generous walls. “We found homes for pieces that had been waiting all those years,” says Doswell.
Other paintings and furnishings were squeezed into the confines of the Bogers’ apartment, waiting to be transplanted to a larger space. Meanwhile the family was growing like, well, weeds; the Bogers now have four children under the age of 11.
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Just as every garden embodies a harmony between wildness and control, this property—an impeccably maintained four-story townhouse in need of a stylistic upgrade—allowed Doswell to play with the balance between tradition and innovation, drama and restraint.
In the library, for example, she energized formal 1872 architecture with vibrant teal lacquer, then introduced an olive green velvet sofa, ikat lampshades, and an antelope rug to add collected, worldly layers to the space.
In the living room, softer hues offset high-impact pieces, such as a deeply tufted aubergine banquette with a chic Paris-in-the-’20s vibe that acts almost as a pedestal for a series of Julian Opie prints long hidden in storage. Over a trim midcentury-style sofa, Doswell mounted a vibrant abstract painting by Larry Zox. “The chartreuse really explodes,” she says. “But because the work is minimalist, it doesn’t overwhelm the space.”
Inside This Upper East Side Townhouse
On the ground floor, French doors open from the family room onto a private garden, which the Bogers wanted to keep simple—a space where their kids could run around with friends. Doswell invited its fresh beauty into the interiors in clever and subtle ways, starting in this adjoining family room, where a lacquered white ceiling “brings garden light indoors and bounces it around,” she says.
Little pops of juicy color from the artwork, including Damien Hirst’s Proctolin over the fireplace, float like vivid blossoms against the green backdrop of the garden beyond. And both here and in the living room above, graceful, leggy pieces near the windows allow light and leafy views to permeate the rooms. In the library, meanwhile, Doswell situated a pair of slipper chairs away from windows overlooking the tree-lined street. Her thinking? “Children love to stand at the glass and watch whatever’s going on outside,” she says.
In the townhouse, says Owen, the couple’s most cherished pieces of art can breathe, whereas in their previous apartment some appeared “smothered.” Doswell created elegant vignettes in tribute, for instance flanking their Alex Katz Wedding Dress painting in the living room with brass faux-bois lamps capped with ethereal Penny Morrison shades and a pair of sculptural iron-legged stools below. Here, as elsewhere in the house, Doswell’s design gestures don’t merely showcase the art but also engage it in lively conversation.
The whole project came together remarkably quickly. The Bogers put a contract on the house in March 2020—two weeks before the COVID-19 shutdown—and moved in by the end of summer. It turned out to be the ideal season for this unique blossoming: Whereas renovation work was halted in apartment buildings throughout the city, it could continue in homes with private front doors.
And so the project sprang to fruition, resulting in a home where art and design can intertwine and breathe and, in turn, will nurture a family who has found the perfect place to put down roots.
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Featured in our May/June 2023 issue. Interior Design by Lucy Doswell; Photography by Read McKendree; Styling by Frances Bailey; Written by Celia Barbour.
