Glass Sofa Feet and Embroidered Cashmere Doors: Inside a 5,600-Square-Foot Park Avenue Duplex

By Marcus Bennett

A 5,600-square-foot Park Avenue duplex now has sofa legs of glass, closet doors of embroidered cashmere, and wall panels hand-woven with silvery-bronze metallic thread. AD100 designer Julie Hillman delivered every piece through what she calls an unusual process.

"I really love doing things that I haven't seen before," Hillman said. "Everything was like a 20-step process. At one point we thought, Why couldn't we have made this a little easier? But it was, in the end, really, really worthwhile."

The clients, a New York City couple with three children, asked Hillman to reinterpret the classic bones of their apartment for both social and family life. They gave her unusual latitude.

"From our initial conversation with Julie, it was clear she heard our goals," one of the homeowners said. "And she has an extraordinary eye."

Who did the architecture?

Hillman worked alongside Ferguson & Shamamian Architects on a comprehensive renovation that left the original floor plan untouched. Bedrooms sit upstairs; the living room, dining room, and library sit downstairs, each with a fireplace.

"It was an excellent layout, very proper, with the bedrooms upstairs and a living room, dining room, and library downstairs, each with a fireplace," Hillman said.

The biggest structural move came in the kitchen. The team converted a former laundry room and bathroom into a spacious breakfast corner with a resized window.

"We really tried to open up that back space and get more light in," said Tom McManus, the architect who led the project. "That was really important to the client, who wanted the apartment to feel more fresh."

What greets visitors at the door?

The custom metal-and-glass front door at the private elevator landing draws on sliding doors Hillman had seen at Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan. The geometric piece had to pass light between the vestibule and the apartment while meeting strict safety requirements. Neil Wainland fabricated it.

The central gallery kept its original marble floors, which sets classic against modern. Beneath the gallery's curved staircase — fitted with lean new railings — stands a 1940s pedestal table by German sculptor Siegfried Pütz. An arched black door nearby opens onto a powder room with textured black walls, an ebony marble sink, and gilded sconces by Hervé Van Der Straeten.

How do you seat twenty people or two?

The living room drove Hillman's furniture strategy. She chose seating of varied shapes so conversations could either flow across the space or stay within intimate pockets.

"For me, it's about having a room where 20 people could sit in, or two people could sit in," she said.

One side pairs a vintage Swedish wood-framed sofa with an André Arbus daybed on glass feet, anchored by a monumental Ingrid Donat bronze coffee table. The other side groups rounder, more cosseting sofas around a mirrored table by Sam Orlando Miller.

The dining room posed a different problem. To avoid a space that looked "like a conference room," Hillman commissioned two tables with robust sculptural pedestals from Italian artisan Mauro Mori. Hidden casters beneath the bases let the pair push together or separate depending on guest count. Above them hangs an oversized chandelier from Milanese lighting company 6:AM, composed of clear and matte glass in shades from ochre to smoky gray, spanning nearly the width of the room.

Where does the craftsmanship get tactile?

In the library. Anjou-based textile artist Anne Corbiere wove silvery-bronze metallic thread into fabric panels made for the walls. Her work returns upstairs in the primary dressing room, where she embroidered cashmere for a series of closet doors, each slightly different from the next.

The full artisan roster spans three countries: a British artist working in mirrored glass, a French textile specialist hand-weaving wall panels, and an Italian sculptor of otherworldly functional pieces.

For Hillman, assembling that many makers in one home defined the project.

"I work with these artisans that have a point of view," she said. "It's really a collaboration."

The apartment strayed far from the easy route. That was precisely the point — and a working model for practitioners who want bespoke trades to carry a residential scheme.