Inside a Gramercy Park Home That’s Taken Nearly Two Decades to Assemble
Sara Story is not one to shy away from daunting obstacles. “That’s what makes life more interesting,” the interior designer says, perched in her bright Manhattan living room. “It’s hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, running a marathon—figuring out something to challenge yourself physically and mentally.” For anyone familiar with Story, who is regarded perhaps as much for her adventurous spirit as her bold oeuvre, that sentiment is no surprise. Case in point: realizing her vision for the five-story Gramercy Park brownstone in which she and her husband individually assembled nine out of 10 apartments, with minimal architectural assistance, over almost two decades. (One tenant, in a small garden flat, is the remaining holdout.) “It’s basically like a Wes Anderson hotel,” the mother of three says with a booming laugh. “It’s just layers upon layers upon layers.”
Although her design process is usually studied and methodical, Story says she intentionally let this project evolve over time. “It’s more like, Oh, I have a couple of tables that I bought in Turkey. Yeah, I’m just going to put them there. Or, I’m in London and I see this vintage chair—I really love it—I’m just going to get it. And then I put it all together.” Even so, traces of a mastermind at work are evident on every level.
It all began one late-summer Sunday in the early aughts, with most of the city emptied out, when the couple answered a New York Times ad for a full, third-floor rental in an Italianate building overlooking the park. Completed in 1849, the structure had long since been divided up into multiple units. The apartment had recently undergone a thoughtful renovation and offered direct views onto the keyed two-acre communal garden. She and her husband signed the lease immediately. Soon recognizing this would be their forever home, Story embarked on the project of a lifetime.
Today, the residence opens up like a madcap soundstage: some Anderson, part The Age of Innocence, a dash of Federico Fellini. The second level, with the stately edifice’s highest ceilings, is where the couple entertain, especially on Fridays, when Story’s husband hosts a weekly cocktail party. Facing an original stone mantel in the living room, a 1970s leather U-shaped sofa from Sweden invites lively conversation under a five-by-six-foot photograph of a Swiss bank vault by Per Barclay. Just outside the kitchen, stocked to the hilt with neat rows of liquor bottles and Topo Chico Mineral Water (“I have three kitchens, so this one is just for drinking,” Story confides), the dining room contains a custom terrazzo table in the style of Jean Prouvé surrounded by Gio Ponti chairs. A deep-blue hideaway for more intimate gatherings and a ballroom-like expanse for fireside Ping-Pong, wrapped in floral Josef Frank wallpaper, flank the central space.
Story credits her childhood, helmed by art-obsessed parents, for her wanderlust and collecting proclivity. Having grown up in Asia and then suburban Houston—her father is in the oil business; her mother was a museum curator—the appreciation for “an eclectic mix of furnishings and finishes” came early on, she says, pointing to Laotian lacquered pumpkins on a grasshopper-shaped wicker table.
Upstairs—with its fully equipped gym, infrared sauna, and cold-plunge ice bath—the third floor is now an oasis for the self-proclaimed fitness obsessive. Its living area, painted in Benjamin Moore’s Pink Innocence, is reflected in a blown-glass mirror by Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert over the mantel. The vivid aerie contrasts with the neighboring “working kitchen,” where all of the family’s meals are prepared, a walnut-paneled jewel box with a vintage Knoll dining set below a George Nelson pendant.
While limited structural work was done during the acquisition of the various apartments, the amalgamation of floors four and five in 2007 was an exception. In the family room of that combined space, a large Daniel Richter painting of the Afghan mountains covers most of the bookshelves along one wall. Nearby, a lineup of carved-wood monks from Thailand keeps watch, and almost every surface in between is dotted with little silver, ceramic, and stone curiosities of disparate origins. The eat-in kitchen, punctuated by Jonas Wood’s graphic French Open, is the scene of daily meals around a painted elm table. The couple’s bedroom next door is the backdrop for family movie nights. There, two paintings of Story, one by Will Cotton and the other by Ragnar Kjartansson, complement works by Yoshitomo Nara, Friedrich Kunath, and Alison Blickle.
Crowning the address, the fifth floor is accessed by a sculptural spiral staircase, and it includes skylights that illuminate this domain. Formerly comprising three studios, this warren of rooms—including a red Morocco-inspired bath—feels appropriately relaxed but no less artfully adorned.
Unlike the designer’s other houses—a pristine compound on a 500-acre spread in Texas Hill Country (AD, April 2014), a gut-renovated 1874 High Victorian Gothic estate on the Hudson River (AD, November 2016), and a newly acquired pied-à-terre in Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés—the Gramercy Park abode is a mille-feuille of Story’s unrestrained personal aesthetic. And that, she insists, comes down to the abundance of one defining feature.
“I think a home feels empty if you don’t have art. And it’s not all expensive art—it can be paintings your children have done,” muses Story, whose new book on the subject, The Art of Home, will be published by Rizzoli this fall. “Sometimes you go to someone’s home and they don’t really have that, and you feel like something’s missing.... It’s having some whimsy and color and magic on your walls. That’s home.”
This story appears in AD’s June 2023 issue. To see this Gramercy Park home in print, subscribe to AD.
1/14The house’s historic façade.
2/14In the parlor floor’s formal living room, a 1970s Swedish sofa lined with pillows of Fortuny and Pat McGann fabrics curves around a 1968 cocktail table of chrome and Carrara marble. Vintage chandelier; wicker grasshopper side table by Mario Lopez Torres; floor lamp by Isamu Noguchi.
Art: Hideaki Kawashima/Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo and Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles. José Lerma. Mindy Shapero/Nino Mier Gallery. © Francesco Clemente.3/14Benjamin Moore’s Pink Innocence colors the sitting-room walls. A painting by Hideaki Kawashima hangs between the windows, and another by José Lerma hangs next to the doorway above a sculpture by Mindy Shapero. Custom sofa flanked by vintage Swedish chairs; white table lamps from Blackman Cruz; vintage cocktail tables.
Art: © Yoshitomo Nara. Matthew Brannon/David Kordansky Gallery.4/14Inviting upholstered furniture—including a Bellini sofa, two Dino Frigerio chairs, and a custom ottoman—warms up the family room. Hanging light by Guyton\Walker; artworks above the fireplace include pieces by Matthew Brannon and Yoshitomo Nara.
5/14A painting by Daniel Richter commands a family room wall.
6/14A floral wallpaper by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn envelops the game room.
7/14In the study, a wet bar is tucked into a closet. The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Inchyra Blue.
8/14Story’s office is wrapped in de Gournay’s Fishes wallpaper. Antique French desk; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe bent-metal chair from Knoll; kilim rug from Turkey.
9/14Designer Sara Story with her daughter, Dagny, and son Edward at a vintage Knoll table in the walnut-paneled working kitchen. George Nelson pendant; Knoll chairs; Miele appliances; Dornbracht faucet; portrait by an unknown artist.
Art: © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-kunst, Bonn. © Yoshitomo Nara.10/14In the family kitchen, a Lona pendant hangs above a vintage Chinese table and chairs.
Art: Kati Heck/Tim Van Laere Gallery.11/14A Kati Heck painting presides over the dining room. Candlesticks by Jermaine Gallacher stand on the custom terrazzo- topped table, which is surrounded by Leggera chairs by Gio Ponti cushioned in Dedar fabric. Walls in Fine Paints of Europe’s North Sea Blue and ceiling in Farrow & Ball’s Dutch Orange.
Art: © 2023 Will Cotton / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Friedrich Kunath/Blum & Poe Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.12/14Furnishings in the primary bedroom include a Dimore bench, an Hervé van der Straeten ceiling light, and a Beauvais rug. Paintings by Will Cotton (left) and Friedrich Kunath (above fireplace).
13/14A vintage armchair and Jean Royère Yo-Yo floor lamp stand in a corner of the primary bedroom. A painting by Alison Blickle hangs above a console by Roman Thomas. Arnold Madsen Clam chair.
14/14In a bath, Benjamin Moore’s Heritage Red lacquers the wainscot. Circa lighting sconce; Urban Archaeology vanity; Lefroy Brooks fittings; Duravit toilet.
