Amanda Nisbet of Amanda Nisbet Design; scroll down for article text


Jayne and Joan Michaels of 2Michaels

Brad Ford of Brad Ford Interior Design and blog Design Therapy

Occasionally, Amanda Nisbet makes a client gasp. “They’ll see a color they think is yucky or scary, like pea green or acid yellow,” she explains. “But then I’ll show them the whole scheme and they’ll say ‘Oooh…now I get it.’”

And there’s no better argument for Nisbet’s bent for high-punch color than her Upper East Side pad, where walls are slicked in high-gloss pea green and contemporary art comes in hues like lemon yellow and cobalt. Tempering the pop palette is a traditional decorating vernacular in which marble-top consoles, voluminous silk curtains and the occasional Klismos chair meet. “It’s not your parents’ home, but it’s not such a diversion that you don’t feel comfortable,” she explains. “I bring a little spunk and freshness to tradition.”

Not that this is her first brush with drama. A decade ago, Nisbet was an actress. “I was going to all these auditions but not becoming the fabulous movie star I wanted to be in a short time,” she says. She soon realized that her callbacks were for her side gig, decorating, not acting—not surprising when you learn that her grandmother, mother and sister are in the business of making homes beautiful, too.

Performances aside, Nisbet is enjoying a 10-year run that started with her first client, comedian Caroline Rhea, and has continued with interiors she’s concocted for aficianados like O magazine publisher Jill Seelig. She may have changed stages, but the applause and rave reviews followed her to her current role.
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In the dining room, warm Venetian plaster walls dial up the gilt frame of her grandmother’s portrait and the tole palm trees beneath it. The pair of girandoles, which belonged to her grandmother, “intensify the glamour and sparkle, which is so important to a dinner party.”

Nisbet arranged a study in blue—a print by James Nares, a sculpture by Mary Chatham and original Josiah Wedgwood pieces dating to the 1750s, which she purchased at Gerald Bland Antiques.

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Thoreau had it right when he said, “Simplify, simplify.” It’s the mantra interior designers Joan and Jayne Michaels, the identical twins behind the firm 2Michaels, follow rigorously. But don’t confuse their métier with minimalism. There’s no lack of stimulation at Jayne’s Sutton Place apartment. With evocative modern artwork—both Federico Vegas and Sam Samore are friends—and exemplary mid-century furniture by Carlo Mollino and Franco Albini, each glance reveals a cache. Let’s face it, the lanky designers themselves could pass for Modigliani muses.

In their late teens, the California natives studied and modeled in Italy, where they were introduced to furniture by Franco Albini and his Neo-Rationalist cohorts. “Their work is so minimal and so refined,” says Jayne. “But there’s always this sensual element.” The same balance is true in the Michaels’ interiors.

Three years ago, the pair teamed up with noted dealer (and Joan’s significant other) Larry Weinberg, to form the showroom 4PM, which sells vintage modern furniture that supplies A-list clients’ homes—and often their own. “Larry doesn’t get attached to things, but I do,” says Joan, citing her Albini chair, one of her first major purchases. “I’ll never sell it.” Even ascetics are entitled to hoard now and again.
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Jayne (left) and Joan Michaels confab at Jayne’s Sutton Place pad. Jayne collects ceramics and pottery, mostly Scandinavian pieces from the ’40s and ’50s. “I love their simplicity and timelessness,” says Jayne. “Some look like ancient Chinese vessels, yet they’re modern.”

Much of the art in Jayne Michaels’ house dates from the mid-century, but the library strikes a more contemporary note. The large photograph is by Sam Samore and the sculpture of a doll, “Little Black Dress,” is by Keith Edmier. The green-and-white chair is by Gio Ponti.

Standing sentry at the living room entrance is a Gio Ponti table, c. 1949, and a 1973 painting by Claude Aliotti, which satisfies Jayne’s love of abstracts and landscapes. The brass candleholders are likely from an artist at Cranbrook, the Michigan art academy that was integral to America’s modernism movement.

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Brad Ford was ten years old when he decorated for the first time. “I chose an overscaled wallpaper with leather belts woven to look like plaid,” Ford recalls of his childhood bedroom. “And the belt buckles were metallic gold paper which matched my new brass furniture. I ‘d spend hours just rearranging three pieces of furniture in this little box.”

The Chelsea-based interior designer abandoned the funkadelic streak in the 70’s but his ability to give a few pieces of furniture major impact has endured. Ford makes small spaces sing, which made him the go-to designer for a cadre of creative, young up-and-comers. His one-bedroom contains just a handful of furnishings: mid-century chairs, a contemporary sofa, and a coffee table that’s essentially a slice of an ancient tree, which indulges Ford’s need for both nature and texture.

“If everything you pick is beautiful to its core, you don’t need a lot of stuff to make a room visually interesting,” he says. Ford’s specialty is infusing a house with a deep serenity, but one that won’t lull you to sleep. Just have a seat in his Poul Kjaerholm chairs and you’ll see what he means.

But Ford doesn’t take his aesthetic too seriously—neither on his blog Design Therapy, nor in his own living space. His bathroom is dipped in chic black chalkboard paint and inscribed with hand-drawn chalk illustrations; he once scored major publicity for encrusting a show house room with petrified bugs. Turns out the metallic wallpaper wasn’t so far-fetched after all.
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Ford revels in mixing downright highbrow furnishings with mass-market finds. The living room holds Poul Kjaerholm chairs, a Noguchi lamp, and a coffee table by French artist Jerome Abel Seguin, but on the wall, a series of Ikea boxes is mounted to mimic the work of Donald Judd—and provide discreet storage, Ford says. The designer’s blog, Design Therapy, chronicles design from a similarly democratic viewpoint.

The Arkansas native is hugely influenced by nature. His bedroom has an earthy palette that complements a collection of pottery. “Organic shapes, rough-hewn wood, a patina finish—those are the things that bring texture and character in a space,” he says.

The mounted impala was a gift from Ford’s mother. “I mentioned to her once briefly that I loved taxidermy,” he recalls. “And there I was at Christmas, opening this big box.”