Caroline Hirsch is a woman with great personal style – a style that includes an enviable lifestyle. I have had the pleasure of creating two homes for her.
She takes meticulous care of her homes, so much so that I jest that with five minutes notice I could arrive with cameras, lights and a few flowers and start shooting photographs immediately.
Shelter magazines are in the business of creating seductive images of rooms we want to be in, and lifestyles we want to have. I love to create images that seduce, but truth be told, not all homes are as beautiful, or as well-styled as we see in print.
I can however tell you, with great confidence, that more than a decade later this home looks as good now as it did then…
Caroline is a woman who has cultivated great skill in living well; this includes creating extraordinary environments to call home, and taking care of her environments, and herself.
A bronze torso by sculptor Auguste Rodin that came from Hirsch’s previous apartment commands the Entry Foyer – exhibiting a strength that seems capable of twisting the stairs into their curved form.
The Foyer table holds a Roman head, a mid-century bronze lamp, and a lacquered Chinese box.
The views from this apartment are part of the decor and are extraordinary at any time of day or night, looking directly over the UN Building and the East River at its widest point and into mid-town Manhattan. Early on it was decided to keep the palette of the interior understated to celebrate the view and defer to the the art.
Caroline brought some art from her previous residence, but embraced the opportunity of a new place to add many great works of modern and contemporary art.
A fantastic painting by abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell hangs above the 18th century French limestone mantle of the working fireplace, flanked by a pair of 1940’s French wall sconces.
In the Den adjacent to the Living Room is a grouping of superb Jean Dunand vases on top of a custom cabinet.
Over the sofa in the same room we installed the single most thrilling grouping of art that I have ever put together – an early cubist pastel by Jacques Lipchitz, a small 1965 Roy Lichtenstein pencil study for a ‘pop-cubist’ painting he made of a famous Picasso painting, and a work on paper by Franz Kline. A Diego Giacometti cast bronze ‘Ostrich’ sits on the coffee table.
The understated palette continues into the Master Bedroom Suite that includes two bathrooms and two dressing rooms
I look forward to another opportunity to create another environment with a client who has always inspired me to do my best work.
