Riverfront Loft – Tribeca

A large, lively and colorful canvas by Larry Poons hangs above the sofa, flanked by Ombre Italian Lamps from the 1950’s in acidic yellow and greens that add an element of surprise to the room’s palette.

TRIBECA – NYC

Riverfront Loft

Glenn Gissler Design transformed this 2,500 square-foot, 2-bedroom loft apartment in Tribeca for a family of three. Located in a freshly converted former warehouse building, the loft’s principal rooms enjoy Hudson River views and an abundance of natural light through six large west-facing windows, making the remaining walls ideal for displaying a newly acquired collection of fine art.

Gissler worked with his clients to acquire a number of artworks by recognized leading American Abstract Expressionist movement artists to be placed within the calm background. A large, lively canvas by Larry Poons hangs above the living room sofa, while striking works by Theodoros Stamos and Milton Resnick are seen in the entry off the dining area.

The soft green treatments mimic the hues of the Hudson River and frame the view. Anchoring this end of the room is a pair of Roman Thomas chairs upholstered in a Pollack fabric. A 19th Century Uzbekistan Suzani embroidery placed on the purple ottoman adds a layer of history and decoration.

The upholstered furniture is tailored but welcoming, covered in warm-hued fabrics—greens, beiges, and purples—that use texture or unassertive pattern to create additional visual interest. Tables, chairs, and case goods in solid dark-stained wood offer strong, graphic silhouettes. Walls are painted in warm and soothing, yet art-friendly shades of taupe.

"We are grateful we selected GGD and would certainly recommend them to others. "

– Client

The symmetrical Dining Area has a pair of large framed mirrors to create the feeling of openness in the room. Above the dining table hangs a branching bubble chandelier by contemporary designer Lindsey Adelman. A large Amethyst specimen is displayed prominently as the centerpiece on the dark-stained dining table from Holly Hunt.

The first view of the apartment is of Theodoros Stamos painting from 1946 title ‘The Sacrifice’ hung above circa 1830 Chinese Alter Table.

The entryway and dining area have a bold mix of objects but the focus of on the rich painting by American Abstract Expressionist painters Milton Resnick and Theodoros Stamos.

In the master bedroom the palette is a combination of soft green and pale peach and the light reflecting off of the Hudson River sparkles in the Mercury Glass Lamps and 1960’s Venini Chandelier.

Senior Designer Craig Strulovitz
Photos by Gross & Daley

Chappaqua Colonial

The Kitchen is the heart of this home and gracefully integrates a complex array of functions and details into a charming understated space. There are an abundance of windows with views to the back and side yards, as well as a skylight over the sink making it a delightful and sunny place to be in the daytime space, and with the layered approach to lighting, a warm and inviting space in the evening. Honed black granite counters recall soapstone sinks of another era, with the glossy mini-subway tiles and brushed nickel bin-pulls provide function and decoration to the kitchen.

CHAPPAQUA, NY

Colonial Revival

After living in a suburban home for more than 15 years, the owners of this family home felt the desire to accommodate the changing needs of their active family. The 1920’s Colonial Revival house in Chappaqua, New York had had some modest alterations over time but it was time for bigger changes. Working with architect David Graham, we helped massage existing spaces, expand others, and provide new furnishings in all of the public rooms.

The modest-scaled front hall is furnished and accessorized simply to reinforce its cottagey appeal. The pattern of the antique Heriz carpet provides decorative practicality for a well-used space with the blasters and railing read graphically against a crisp white background.

The multi-functional Family Room is adjacent to the Living Room and is differentiated by its taller beamed ceiling and the focus on a large screen television. We used a warm palette, with wood furniture and patinated bronze in the curtain hardware, chandelier, and table lamps to add charm and detail. The adjacent sunroom has floor-to-ceiling windows, and French doors to the back yard.

While still a casual space, the Living Room is a more refined than the family room. We installed a custom wood bolection fireplace surround, and integrates a range of contemporary and vintage pieces for a curated eclecticism.

The classic silhouettes of the upholstered furniture are covered in warm, understated, but rich textiles without bold patterns, giving the room a more updated traditional appearance. The bold-scale and simple lines of the vintage mercury glass table lamps and the framed photograph are more contemporary and help to keep the room fresh. The most dramatic piece of furniture in the Living Room is a vintage-style articulated chair upholstered in leather. The custom table lamps from Daniel Berglund provide a functional source of illumination for this bay window tableau with its array of objects from different cultures and time periods.

The classic paneled Library is in rich contrast to the adjacent rooms. The French 1940’s desk and upholstered armchair and ottoman make it a great space for reading, writing and working on the computer. A custom chandelier made of discarded jet-engine parts is an industrial accent for the room.

"During a major renovation of our home 18 years ago, we were fortunate to engage Glenn Gissler Design from construction thru completion. What resulted was a spectacular family home - warm, inviting and most importantly, timeless. A home design that looks as beautiful in 2019 as it did 18 years ago. Glenn and his design professionals worked on all aspects of the job with a keen eye to sublime design and clean lines - all done in a professional and timely manner. I highly recommend Glenn Gissler Design and his entire team! "

– Client

The bright and open Breakfast room is open to the kitchen. A custom shaded-chandelier hangs over a large farm table that is surrounded by Windsor chairs.

A window seat with swing-arm wall sconces with white glass shades provides a place to take your shoes off, to set a package down or to sit and read while looking out to the backyard.

In the working portion of the Kitchen there is a large island for food preparation with three vintage industrial stools for seating and a bold large-scale Halophane fixture for perfect illumination. Additional lighting is provided by vintage-style surface mounted fixtures that are applied to the painted bead board ceiling throughout the eat-in kitchen. The pantry storage has perforated metal fronts that tie in with the custom range hood and industrial-style appliances. The striped carpet runner on the back stairs provides some retro-color to the room.

"After 19 years the Kitchen you designed for me still looks beautiful and modern – I am proud to be the owner!"

– Client

The Master Bedroom has a tray ceiling with space ‘borrowed’ from the attic above. A built-in window seat provides a great view to the back yard as well as storage below. An antique Empire table desk and floor lamp proved an alternate place to work or read. A flat-weave scatter rug is set upon the carpeting to add color and interest, along with the pair of Sang du Boeuf ginger jar bedside lamps.

A vintage French light fixture hangs in the apex of gentle pyramidal ceiling of the Master Bathroom adding interest and illumination. The antique Persian area rug gives texture and pattern in contrast to the other surfaces in the room and the vintage Chinese barber’s stool and the shapely oversized bathtub add sculptural elements. While the unconstructed roman shades soften the room.

Senior Designer Craig Strulovitz
Photos by Gross & Daley

Family Apartment – Greenwich Village

The master bedroom encapsulates the clients’ eye for art and decorative accents. The pencil drawing above the bed is by Alan Saret; the embroidered throw on the bed is a Suzani from Uzbekistan. The Liberty “Thebes” chair is a Gissler hallmark, a seminal work of decorative art which appears in several of his interiors.

GREENWICH VILLAGE – NYC

Family Apartment

These Manhattan clients, art collectors and parents, acquired a 3000 square foot apartment in a particularly charming prewar building on lower Fifth Avenue, having already inhabited a smaller apartment in the same building. The new space, which required gut renovation, provided an exceptional opportunity for a more serious display of their collection of modern and contemporary drawings.

Capacious closets were plentiful; suddenly there was room for amenities such as a laundry room, central air conditioning, an office-cum-playroom which doubled as a guest room, two full baths and two half baths. Glenn also renewed much of the architectural detail in the apartment: crown moldings, baseboards and door casings were all painstakingly recreated.

The most striking attribute of the apartment was its abundant and spectacular views of Greenwich Village, seen through beautiful original steel casement windows. The dining room, in particular, comprised a large loggia with windows on three sides. So immense was the dining table designed by Gissler, that its top, made by Tucker Robbins of reclaimed wood, had to be brought in via crane!

The master bath is a lean yet luxurious jewel box of satin nickel accoutrements and beautiful black mosaic tile, laid out in a design that expands the length of the room. Mirror panels in the deep set window bring in more light and view; the light fitting has an antique milk glass shade with Edison bulbs.

In the entry, the rustic paneled cabinet is from Mexico; the lamp is crafted from a turned wooden urn with a pair of handles in a modern silhouette. The Egyptian-inspired drawing is by Nancy Spero; the ink drawing by New York artist Beth Dary. The candlestick is by Christopher Dresser.

In the living room, two fine French art deco chairs, reminiscent of the faceted designs of Pierre Chareau, are from Maison Gerard, NYC. They reside with a collection of framed works on paper displayed cleverly along rails built into the wall.

In the hallway, a 19th century chair is paired with a large drawing by New York artist Karin Davie. The silvery urn at the side is a large mercury glass vessel.

In the foyer, an antique console is arrayed with glass vessels and an African mask; above hang works on paper by Jonathan Borofsky, Gordon Matta-Clark, Merit Cohen, Robert Smithson and Lorna Simpson.

The newly built curving stair wrapped in cerused oak paneling, appearing as if it had always been a part of the building. An enormous custom Lindsey Adelman chandelier hangs dramatically in the large curved volume.

In the living room, an array of 20th century classics is set out with variety and verve. At left, a pair of ‘Klismos’ chairs by Robsjohn-Gibbings vies with two leather Arts & Crafts stools, and an English club chair upholstered in red Manuel Canovas fabric.

In a corner of the living room, abutting steel casement windows provide spectacular views of downtown Manhattan. A chair with sinuous wooden arms contrasts with the geometry of the windows. The owners’ cat naps on an elegant chaise longue.

Bookshelves line the dining room, which opens onto the living room and its magnificent views.

In the dining room, a modified antique gas chandelier casts a glow over the custom table crafted by Tucker Robbins of reclaimed wood. It seats fourteen. The mid-century Austrian chairs with pierced slats were designed in the 1950s for Vienna’s city hall, and were bought from Kimcherova. .

Books constituted a major aspect of the clients’ collecting activities, and shelving for them was a major architectural feature of the apartment.

Art pervades the kitchen, with a large drawing by Donald Baechler.

Expanses of sparkling white “subway” tiles create a pristine backdrop for the splendid stainless steel double-oven range and crisp millwork.

Senior Designer Craig Strulovitz
Photos by Gross & Daley

Duplex Apartment – Brooklyn Heights

With its imposing wall of books, the downstairs sitting area doubles as a library.

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS – NYC

Duplex Apartment

This brownstone duplex – Glenn Gissler’s own — in the heart of historic Brooklyn Heights, represents a fine distillation of the designer’s development over the past three decades. The tailored, masculine sensibility of these rooms is expressed through unabashedly dark colors–camel, chocolate brown, and  green-black–which create a subdued yet rich background for Glenn’s collection of art, furniture and objects, grouped in tableaux which he regularly rearranges.

As a collector of Arts & Crafts and Aesthetic Movement furniture, both American and British, he free reign in this apartment to incorporate seminal examples of such design. Thus a Liberty & Co. “Thebes” stool has pride of place beside a very contemporary settee, upholstered in a chocolate and cinnamon woven stripe. Christopher Dresser ceramics, contemporary drawings and other works on paper, including distinctive “outsider art” harmonize with curtains patterned like African fabric and a rich selection of natural yet polished materials–dark green granite, exotic hardwoods, and burnished metals.

The living room is a layered, complex arrangement of both geometric and more biomorphic forms. The custom coffee table is assertively asymmetrical, while the green-glazed ceramics, by Christopher Dresser for Linthorpe, are rounded and gourd-like. The “Thebes” stool is a Gissler signature, a favorite form he incorporates into various interiors.

Curtains in patterned fabric by Pollack form the backdrop for a tall dark green Mexican ceramic and a sculpture by Christopher Dresser.

A crisp classic of early 20th century design–De Stijl designer Gerrit Rietveld’s Zig-zag chair–the framed drawing that dominates the vignette is a 1958 work by American artist Sonia Gechtoff.

"While it was a big change to move to Brooklyn after nearly three decades in Greenwich Village and Soho, the duplex apartment offered space and amenities that I could never have afforded in Manhattan . . . after living in single floor apartment it was a revelation to live on two floors – the spatial definition offers a sense of privacy and luxury that it’s hard to imagine!"

– Glenn Gissler

"Your apartment is truly one of, if not the most special apartments in the neighborhood."

Gissler designed the chandelier that hangs above a 1950s Baker dining table. A Le Corbusler work on paper to the left of the fireplace is balanced by one on the right by American abstract expressionist Seymour Lipton.

The elegant kitchen serves as the apartment’s de facto entry hall, with glossy green cabinetry, expanses of mirror glass and granite countertops.

"I wake up every day looking at a richly planted terrace that connects me to nature and creates a sense of calm. I love my apartment cherish my books and objects and treasure my art collection, but I like my apartment best when engaged with family and friends in my home. I have been acquiring items that give me pleasure for many decades – they rarely remain in the same location for too long as I am interested in the dialogue between them – like friends at a party! All of the art that I own is from the 20th century – some early and some late in the century – I love to find relationships between seemingly disparate works as I understand them more and more."

– Glenn Gissler

French Art Deco armchair, faux shagreen coffee tables and framed art matted in white provide a pale contrast to the wall color of bitter chocolate. The yellow artwork is by the well-known American artist Donald Baechler.

In this aerie under the eaves, exposed roof beams create a unique feeling of shelter; the room’s unusual scale resembles that of a Paris atelier.

On the walls – the color of bitter chocolate – is an assemblage of contemporary works on paper.

Classic garden furniture from Restoration Hardware makes of this city terrace a place to enjoy nature, as well as to entertain.

Art Collectors’ Home – Westchester

The living room is a study in soft greys and mellow burgundies, with sofas by Jonas Upholstery. The stool is 19th century, made from whale vertebrae, from Amy Perlin; the tree-trunk table is of petrified wood.

Westchester House

Art Collectors’ Home

The clients, empty nesters with a house in Westchester, New York are passionate and discerning art collectors. Modest in size, and superlative in quality, their collection includes works by Cy Twombly, Joan Miro, Jim Dine, Edvard Munch, Jean Dubuffet, Richard Serra, Robert Motherwell, Henri Matisse, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, and Frank Stella.

We sought to create a setting for these pieces that would display them prominently yet without ostentation. It was the clients’ desire truly to live with art, meshing seamlessly the works on the walls with fine pieces of twentieth-century furniture, to live in the comfort of understated style, design originality and quality.

As many of the artworks are from the mid-to late twentieth century, we countered this emphasis with furniture of the earlier to mid-part of the century, designed by Mies van der Rohe, Pierre Chareau, Carlo Scarpa, and in the manner of Jean-Michel Frank, with accents by Hans Wegner and Eero Saarinen. As always, we did not limit the furniture repertoire to Modernist icons, but introduced earlier finds–even of the Colonial era– of comparable simplicity, along with his signature emphasis on wonderfully comfortable custom upholstery and rugs. Altogether, this residence–calm, considered, above all comfortable–flashes with excitement from the seminal works of art which punctuate its rooms.

1920’s stools by the legendary designer Pierre Chareau vie for attention with a work on paper by another legend, American artist Cy Twombly in the living room.

Glenn must have made a thousand decisions. We don’t regret any. We worked together in a collaborative way. He made suggestions and we discussed them. Nothing was forced. The final result was a warm comfortable modern interior, esthetically pleasing, simple not cluttered. The ultimate compliment came from many visitors, including art patrons on a house tour, who said “I would love to live in this house.”

– Client

The cerused oak dining table and chairs in the manner of Jean-Michel Frank represent Frank’s gift to the twentieth century: elegantly plain furniture that bears the discrete neo-Baroque curve. Above hangs a faceted pendant lamp by Pierre Chareau. The startling scarlet of the walls is Donald Kaufman custom paint, its color inspired by Jim Dine’s painting, “Bathrobe” which hangs against it.

A long Colonial bench with original paint, almost modern in it simplicity, is surmounted by a series of eight self-portraits by Jim Dine.

The cerused oak dining table and chairs in the manner of Jean-Michel Frank represent Frank’s gift to the twentieth century: elegantly plain furniture that bears the discrete neo-Baroque curve. Above hangs a faceted pendant lamp by Pierre Chareau. The startling scarlet of the walls is Donald Kaufman custom paint, its color inspired by Jim Dine’s painting, “Bathrobe” which hangs against it.

A nineteenth-century chair, modern in its angles, is accompanied by an etching of Edvard Munch.

Quality and patina attend this smallest room: the countertop is of limestone, supported by legs of polished nickel, with vintage style faucet in the same finish. The antique round mirror is from J. Garvin Mecking, the vintage style wall sconce, from Urban Archaeology.

In a corner of the family room, we created a lively dialogue between pieces of 1950s furniture–including Eero Saarinen’s famous ‘Womb’ chair and ottoman, a crisp white “Akari” floor lamp designed by Isamu Noguchi, later works of contemporary fine art, and a suite of boldly calligraphic works on paper by Richard Serra. The platform bench is by George Nelson.

The rustic patina of the Kitchen is in sharp contrast to the elegance of the other rooms. An antique oak farm table is surrounded by antique 17th century rush-bottomed chairs, all lit by a single pendant from Urban Archaeology. The sheer simplicity of the farm furniture presages that of the 20th century pieces used elsewhere in the house.

Soft neutrals suggest repose and subdued luxury. Etchings by Henri Matisse set the mood, expressed further by the pale, rosy beiges of the fireplace surround, bedclothes and leather upholstery of the Mattaliano side chairs and sleek X-framed stools, and the curtains framing the French doors.

Above the upholstered headboard, two vibrant prints by Joan Miro, and at the bedside, a classic Louis Poulsen lamp.

Senior Designer Craig Strulovitz
Photos by Gross & Daley