Introspective Magazine: Hudson River Estate

1stDIBS: INTROSPECTIVE MAGAZINE

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With This Handsome Hudson River Estate, Glenn Gissler Redefines Gracious Living

by Fred A. Bernstein
Photography by Peter Murdock

In Nyack, New York — not even an hour’s drive from Manhattan — the interior designer created a home that makes its owners feel as if they’d been transported to a faraway resort.

It takes GLENN GISSLER almost two hours to drive from his apartment in Brooklyn Heights to his weekend house in northwestern Connecticut. So, he might envy his clients — an investment banker, his wife and their young daughter — who live in a Lower Manhattan loft. Getting to their weekend house, in Nyack, New York, takes all of 45 minutes. And that includes crossing the Hudson River, which the city apartment and the country house overlook from opposite sides.

Nine years ago, when they bought the Manhattan apartment, the couple hired Gissler to design its interiors, a job that included helping them assemble a collection of ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST ART. Then, three years ago, when they started looking for a weekend house, they turned to Gissler for advice. After a few false starts, the couple found a newly constructed COLONIAL REVIVAL/shingle-style home that fronts the river at its widest point. Architect David Neff had given the 5,200-square-foot home traditional details while keeping the interiors open and light.

“The rooms are well proportioned, not too grandiose,” Gissler says. And the setting couldn’t be better. The house, he says, is set high enough to offer spectacular Hudson River views and low enough to feel close to the water.

The couple bought it, and Gissler proceeded to outfit the interiors with a smart mix of new and old furniture, much of it European. “The house is very much American, but it’s not AMERICANA,” says the designer, who studied architecture and fine arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, then worked for an architect (Rafael Viñoly) and an interior designer (JUAN MONTOYA) before founding his own practice, in 1987.

Here, Gissler leads Introspective on a tour of the house, on which he collaborated with his senior designer, Craig Strulovitz, also a RISD graduate.

 

Read the full Article on 1stdibs.com

 

Maine Home + Design

MAINE HOME + DESIGN

APRIL 2019

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Design Alchemy

by Beth Dunlop
Photography by Jonathan Reece
Styling by Glenn Gissler & Craig Strulovitz 

A house in Sorrento surrounded by water blends seemlessly into the landscape

 

Shore House, as its owners call it, is a new house with deep roots in history, intimately connected to both to both time and place. Its architecture reflects the strong vernacular traditions of downtown east Maine but in a modern enough way that you know that it is of now, not then. Like so many of the best houses, it i a study in subtle contradictions, some yin and some yang. At once elegant but casual, buttoned-up but laid-back. Inside you’ll find family treasures mixed with auction house finds and up-to-date additions. Throughout, says interior designer Glenn Gissler, it shows the owners’ “appreciation for patina, quirkiness, and the willingness to tolerate less than perfection, giving the house a sophisticated and considered aesthetic with a ‘nothing precious’ vibe.”

It is a quiet retreat for two but near enough to extended family to be a gathering place for many. It is, as the owners spelled out, a house that is comparatively small but, as Gissler puts it, “lives spaciously.” Gissler, who is based in New York, had worked with the homeowners before; their home base is Boulder, Colorado, but they have a pied-à-terre in Manhattan that he designed. The architects–Kay Stevens Rosa and Augusto Rosa of Bar Harbor’s A4 Architects—had not previously worked with the couple but found that their goals and ideas for making the house were perfectly aligned.

First there was the site. The house sits on a spit of land with 270 degrees of shoreline, part of a larger camp that had been in the extended family for some decades, all in a particularly picturesque part of the state. Settled in 1762 and incorporated in 1895, the tiny town of Sorrento is often considered to be one of Maine’s most photogenic spots.

“Sorrento is a little town preciously tucked into the land, with a dancing coastline and amazing views of Mount Desert Island,” says Kay Stevens Rosa. “It has a rare combination of foreground, middle ground, and background, so we knew the house would be all about the view.”

Those nightlines were a prime goal in the architecture. “The desire was to maintain the natural landscape trees, and ledge outcroppings and to use the interstitial views to arrange interior spaces,” recalls Kay. In the living room, large doors and windows maximize the view of Mount Desert Island; the office looks out to the northwest, where the owners’ boat (a 38-foot Downeast cruise) is moored. The eat-in kitchen and adjoining screened porch gaze toward Hancock Point, and the owners’ suite—which gets bathed in the morning sun—has what Kay terms a “serene cove view.” Water, water, everywhere.

To clad the 3,500-square-foot house, the Rosas selected bleached white cedar shingles that will eventually turn silver, as well as ebony-stained trim. The padding and the organically laid stone patio are a clear nod to the historic vernacular architecture of the region, though simplified and modernized. “We feel it is important for a structure to be true to its own time as well as its context and history,” says Kay. Among the hallmarks of A4 Architects’ style are variations in scale, including varied ceiling heights, and the use of curves to accentuate the most important spaces—in this case, the entry porch and the living room.

For the architects, it was important that the Shore House would blend into the tree line and be less visible from the water. They preserved view corridors and sought to enhance indoor-outdoor relationships. “The desire was to maintain the natural landscape, trees, and ledge outcroppings,” says Kay. “On this site it was important that the house not be too imposing.” A hallmark of A4 Architects’ work is, she says, “the use of texture and color to evoke comfort, warmth, and scale.”

The first floor of the house has a grandly proportioned double-height living room with vaulted ceilings and a tile-clad fireplace. Other rooms include an owners’ bedroom suite, “his and hers” office spaces, and a kitchen—spaces that Kay describes as “gracious yet informal.” A butler’s pantry—inspired bar connects the kitchen and living room, the latter possessing a cozy corner library and TV nook for two. There’s also a multipurpose mud/laundry/gear room, a powder room, and a screened porch. The architects added a loft overlooking the living rooms. It is home to an art studio, an exercise space, and a play area for visiting grandchildren. Although it is, functionally speaking, a one-bedroom house, Kay points out tat several rooms, including the art studio and one office, can be used as guest bedrooms as well.

The sense of context inherent in the architecture is carried from the outside in, with random-length oak floors throughout and painted board-and-batten walls. Gissler drew his inspiration for the palette of the upholstery, paint, and window treatments from the hues of the landscape and from an existing rug with soft green and lavender stripes. To that end, one of his first purchases was a small one that set the tone: a grape—and gold-hued William Morris textile (the pattern is Kennet) that is used on accent pillows both on the sectional sofa and the twin velvet wing chairs.

Much of the furniture is American arts and crafts style, or at least from that period just after the turn of the twentieth century. Some of it, says Gissler, came from the original family house on the property, a large Victorian cottage. Other pieces are new, among them the living room sectional sofas and wing chairs, which came from the North Carolina-based Lee Industries, and the modern Gustavian chests in the bedroom, which Gissler sourced from the Texas furniture company Wisteria. “The furnishings and decorations have a solid confidence one might associate with homes at the turn of the twentieth century,” he says.

The floor coverings—including rag, cotton hooked, and sisal rugs—all have what Gissler calls “a summer ease.” To provide a sense of continuity between past and present, Gissler opted for a variety of vintage-style light fixtures throughout the house. “In places where other smight have resorted to recessed lights, we used pendant lights that provide a more pleasing kind of illumination. In some fixtures we used vintage clear Edison light bulbs,” he says. “Absolutely everything is on dimmers to allow for ‘ambiance control.’” A large-scale faux antler chandelier (from CDN Antler Designs) hangs in the living room; other light fixtures come from Rejuvenation and Schoolhouse. Although the new furnitures and fixtures reflect the aesthetic spirit of the house, they are very much of their time. “We do not fake antiques,” says Gissler.

For the interior designer and architects, the melding of old and new, time and place, formal and casual was the key to finding the perfect balance. It’s a combination of style, substance, and serendipity, along with what Gissler likes to call alchemy—a formula that creates and enchanting home.

 

Cultured Lifestyle Magazine

CULTURED LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

MAY / JUNE 2018

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A Man of all Seasons

by Project Senior Designer, Craig Strulovitz
Interior Design: Glenn Gissler 
Photography: Gross & Daley

Not all professional interior designers have a signature ‘look,’ a Brand to call their own. Some have cleared the hurdle—Glenn Gissler being one—a designer who brings his own perspective and profession.

 

Layer architecture, 20th-century art, literature, fashion, historic preservation, architectural history and immediately you see Gissler’s expertise is not just interior design.

His interests and knowledge manifest the diversity of the work–exquisitely crafted and integrated into the architecture of the space.

Recently celebrating a 30th anniversary, Gissler has authenticated that he is a designer bringing a culminated perspective to the profession. The work is diverse.

What makes his work so special, is his ability to marry architectural concept with curator sensibility—a reverence for fabric, mixed with natural lighting—ultimately Gissler and client create environments built and nuanced around personalities and needs.

This project from a Colorado couple with a fantasy of the Ottoman Empire, richly figured carpets and ornaments for their two bedroom apartment in a 1920’s Greenwich Village building.

Gissler and Senior Designer Craig Strulovitz decided to articulate the room separations using casings, moldings, and portieres to create a greater sense of sequence to the rooms. To further emphasize room separations, the color palette colorations were changed from one room to the other, with a livid lacquered cinnabar as the color in the entry. Judiciously placed mirrors expanded and lightened the spaces.

Very interested in vintage textiles, the clients wanted to create a warm and rich oasis for the time they spent in NYC. Gissler introduced a layering of Persian rugs and embroidered or tapestry wall-hangings. A selection of patterned textiles, woven or embroidered rather than printed, and often antique in appearance, are carefully juxtaposed. Many of the upholstery and pillow fabrics are actually new, but they have a luscious, aged look.

The result is not a recreated Turkish Interior, but a place where imagined and actual travel meet the incomparable comfort of home in this case, a second home in one of the most charming neighborhoods New York City has to offer.

NOTEBOOK: The entry was lacquered in the Farrow and Ball color Loggia. Upon entering the apartment you are greeted by an 18th Century English oak chest of drawers placed in front of an oversized copper clad mirror, used to display an array of curated objects including a brutalist lamp and tramp art box. The room also includes a fantastic work by artist Giorgio Morandi.

The dining room became a Library Area which can be used for occasional entertaining, centered upon the Empire round table the clients brought from Colorado. The vintage chairs are from an Art Deco ocean liner. Meant to be flexible, the table may be set up as a dining table, buffet, or bar. At right, a portiere in Kavet’s double-sided “interweave” fabric marks the separation from the bedroom.

In the living room is an antique Tabriz area rug with stylized floral pattern in indigo and cream, is keynote of this richly patterned and textured room. The custom Belgian sofa is from Jonas. Interesting objects—two Paris of mounted oryx horns; a cross-legged Aesthetic Movement table—add detail and depth. Boudin armchairs upholstered by Jonas in Bellinger’s vibrant Paprika “Pasha” velvet flank the exquisite late 17th century English crewel embroidery with exotic floral motif, from Fuller’s Fine Art Auction. The antique Korean blanket chest made of elmwood with original iron hardware, severs as a shared table.

A Victorian Eastlake side table, in the sitting room, is juxtaposed with a pair of Dorothy Draper walnut tables from Assemblage, Ltd. The long English roll arm sofa in charcoal linen is from Restoration Hardware. The Patrick Naggar candle scones for Pucci are modern, yet Thomas Edison-like, of blown glass, with barequartz bulbs. Photograph above the sofa is by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Paint and light fixtures were used to transform the white kitchen to a warm and inviting gathering space.

The master bedroom is nothing less than sumptuous and enveloped in a soft green palette. The walls are papered in a Fiori pattern by Rose Tarlow, woodwork is painted with Farrow and Ball ‘Lichen,’ the curtains and portiere as a custom made from Corragio fabric in the same pale teal. Above the upholstered headboard hangs a vintage textile, from the clients own collection, printed on velvet.