Interior designer Jessica Schuster merged modern glamour and old-world character in her reimagining of an apartment in a 1906 Italian Renaissance Revival building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“For the foyer, we opened up two smaller rooms to create a spacious, light-filled entry that serves as a central hub for the home,” she says. “Custom moldings and limestone flooring nod to the building’s classic character while adding a contemporary touch.”
Other such touches include an Achille Salvagni Darts chandelier and a biomorphic painting by Landon Metz. Schuster worked throughout the home with sumptuous fabrics, like the custom Claremont textile with Houlès fringe covering the foyer’s center table.
A remarkable family retreat in Wisconsin had a previous life as a Boy Scouts camp. In reconceiving the compound, Bruce Fox sought to create a home that “feels as though it’s been passed down through generations,” he says. “To achieve this, I selected furniture and objects from various periods to give the spaces a curated, collected-over-time feel.”
In the wood-paneled foyer, a French wine-tasting table mingles with an Art Deco ottoman and an Old Hickory stool, above which hangs a perfectly rusted chandelier found in a drafty warehouse.
Antique kilim rugs and a railroad-station bench topped with pillows in vintage textiles “further contribute to the room’s layered, storied atmosphere,” says Fox. And the red-hot hue of a hand-carved door by Michael Graham, of Liederbach and Graham Architects, is offset by the cooling green-blue of boldly striped drapes.
“A thoughtfully designed entryway offers an immediate sense of warmth and intrigue,” Fox says, “inviting visitors to explore the rest of the space.”
“I love designing foyers that set the mood for the house. It has to be uplifting,” says Peter Mikic. In his design scheme for an art collector’s townhouse in the Kensington section of London, this uplift is also cheeky, thanks to the Ben Turnbull artwork Us vs Them, 2007, with its dueling pistols encased behind the words “In Emergency Break Glass.”
Nearby are a Ring Tall sconce by CTO and a vintage chair reupholstered in a vibrant geometric textile next to a brutalist console. The ornate French-style bronze balustrade and brass handrail climb all four stories of the home, along the way encountering a Damien Hirst Spot print and a daisy chain of Jamb pendants extending down through the staircase’s central void.
“The clients wanted a very light, traditional foyer with pops of color and artwork,” Mikic says. Mission accomplished.
“The entry is a perfect place to showcase investment-worthy pieces that retain their classic beauty and value,” says Rachel Laxer.
In the foyer of her own Tudor house, in Scarsdale, New York, those enduring objects come in the form of an R & Y Augousti bench pulled up to a circa 1970 Angelo Mangiarotti console under an Hervé Van der Straeten mirror.
“I’m always looking at art and functionality and how I can combine the two,” Laxer says. “I wanted the foyer to feel timeless — a space that introduces the design of the home.”
Martha Mulholland embraced the grandeur of a contemporary Bel Air mansion when decorating its interiors. “Often, the directive with such a home is to make it cozier and ‘human scaled,’ ” she says. “Rather than trying to make it something it’s not, we leaned into the muscular nature of the architecture and chose decor that felt similarly sculptural, chic and textural.”
Works of statement art, curated with advisers from CAP, and fine design appear throughout the home. “And,” says Mulholland, “my favorite pieces from the collection are featured prominently in the entry.”
Greeting visitors are a trio of wooden columns carved by Teodor Graur in 2017, a found-steel seat in the manner of Gerrit Rietveld’s Zig-Zag chair and a custom mobile chandelier by Rewire.
“These pieces,” Mulholland explains, “share a mixture of sleek and rustic materials that complement the hand-chiseled limestone walls, reclaimed-teak door and polished-travertine floors.”
The 84-story condominium tower at 111 West 57th Street in Manhattan, designed by SHoP Architects with interiors by Studio Sofield, sits atop the 16-floor Steinway Building, which was constructed in 1925 by the piano makers of the same name and includes a performance space impressive enough to compete with nearby Carnegie Hall.
“There is no building more New York than the Steinway,” says the interior design firm’s principal, William Sofield. “Its heritage, noble presence on 57th Street and romantic connection to Carnegie Hall cement it in our collective memories.”
The lobby, the designer says, “required a suitable dignity, monumentality and artistic expression” to accord with both the historicity of the original building and the 21st-century luxury of the new skyscraper, which is the world’s slenderest.
Sofield decorated the space in “lily-of-the-valley blossoms of rock crystal on a Grecian wave of stems and leaves made of hammered steel and bronze, within a cove of gilded limestone,” as he poetically puts it. These architectural elements pair with an oversize urn filled with sculpted palm fronds. The end-grain wood flooring was repurposed from the old Steinway and Sons loading docks.
Further historical allusions are provided by a 19th-century French tapestries and a sofa, covered in custom silk velvet with an Egyptian Revival pattern, that was inspired by one in the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s home.
“We are all drawn to New York for the interminable energy and excitement, yet it comes with a price,” Sofield says. “I wanted to create a moment of restorative respite — calm amid the chaos.”
In a Malibu family home, Amber Lewis, of Amber Interiors, deployed an array of natural colors and textures, aiming, she says, to “strike the perfect mix of materials, while maintaining a livable and laid-back house.”
To make the tall foyer feel extra inviting, she brought in a vintage rug, mirror and console. Perfectly contrasting with the room’s organic finishes is a monumental mobile-like brass chandelier by Lindsay Adelman.
“I want any entry I design to feel elevated and welcoming,” Lewis says, “and also cohesive with the rest of the home.”
Alexandra Champalimaud seamlessly mingled antiques and contemporary pieces in an apartment on New York’s Park Avenue. The modern-day furnishings in the foyer, in fact, are likely to be coveted antiques in the future.
Among these are an Hervé Van der Straeten console and sconce and a custom Kiko Lopez mirror, purchased through Maison Gerard. If the decor seems a bit spare, that’s the way Champalimaud likes it.
“Chic to me is less,” she told Introspective. “The power is in the soul of a place, not its adornment. It’s like a person. You can perceive their presence.”
“The foyer was designed to be the center and core of the home,” designer Kevin Dumais says of this space in a Vero Beach, Florida, home, where he sought to evoke a beach vibe without specific seaside references. “We kept the furnishings simple and fresh. It’s a neutral palette infused with blues, golds and an abundance of white oak.”
A Jean Prouvé gueridon table provides a focal point in the room, which Dumais further furnished with vintage spindle-back chairs from 1stDibs and an overscale Sputnik chandelier.
Wanting to bring the Art Deco style of the Rose Bay, Australia home‘s architecture inside, designer Greg Natale opted for geometric shapes and stark white walls. “The house spans three floors, so this ribbon staircase winds its way up through the middle of the home and connects each level with its sinuous curves,” Natale says. “A real sense of arrival is paramount. The palette is clean and pleasing, and the dark timber floor helps to really warm the space.”
A Thomas Pheasant Arcade center table from Baker Furniture sits on a rug designed by Natale himself.
This grand foyer may look like it belongs to an English country manor, but it’s actually the entry to a Pikesville, Maryland, home designed by Cashmere Interior.
The eclectic mix of Indian art, classic furnishings and antiques reflects the different places the well-traveled homeowners have visited over the years, creating an effect that is serene, luxurious and exotic all at the same time.
Avoiding ski chalet clichés, StoneFox Architects went for colorful and modern in a sprawling 14,000-square-foot family home in Aspen, Colorado.
The entryway proudly displays several large-scale works from the homeowners’ avant-garde art collection, which pop against the black walls, while the chandelier heightens the drama.
“For this Sonoma farmhouse, the directive was to make it fun and family friendly, with lots of colors and hard-working vintage pieces,” says designer Allison Dehn Bloom.
The furnishings Bloom chose radiate a sophisticated whimsy. Case in point: the paired Dash + Albert striped runner and vintage Moroccan boucherouite rug.
“Inspired by a holistic view of the open plan, the entry provides balance and unification between the adjacent spaces,” Stefani Stein says of this space in an L.A. home she designed.
Despite the abundance of stunning distractions, the eye is drawn to the homeowners’ sumi-ink and gouache herons by Jenna Snyder-Phillips.
The birds look perfectly at home among the plants and vintage pottery on and around the modern farmhouse-style console table, all overseen by textural lighting.
“The selections were made to complement the clients’ relaxed lifestyle and fondness for a quintessential California aesthetic,” Stein explains.
This Beverly Hills foyer provides a stylish connection between the indoors and the outdoors.
“For this home, the Friedrich Kunath artwork inspired our design, making a bold gesture against the neutral color palette of the surrounding terrazzo, zinc and wood,” says Ron Radziner, design partner of Marmol Radziner.
The Hervé Van der Straeten console introduces a graphic element in the otherwise natural and pared-down space.
A welcoming alcove in a Cape Cod beach house by Heather Wells offers a lesson in coastal design sans the classic blue-and-white scheme.
Neutral tones reign, and woods of different colors and grains contrast quietly with the white walls and ceiling. Wells has clearly mastered the art of balance.
In Brooklyn, Bella Mancini transformed a dark industrial loft into an open and airy home that caters to the clients’ fondness for a black-and-white color scheme and bold designs.
To harmonize rather than compete with the geometric wall pattern, Mancini chose simple, laid-back furnishings like the built-in desk, leather chair and floating mirror.
“I’ve always had a wish to go on a retreat to a series of monasteries, but I’ve never found stylish ones,” says Marcus Mohon.
“This Austin foyer is what I’ve imagined they would look like. I love the contemporary painting my client found at the local shop Round Top, and the nonchalant placement of candlesticks on the bench is an intentional way to make guests feel relaxed upon entry.”
Understated, elegant, timeless — these are the watchwords of Brad Ford, who designed this New York foyer with layered textures and high-quality materials to create a feeling of balance and light.
This entry in a Malibu beach house by Michael S. Smith demonstrates the renowned designer’s love of timeless, traditional decor.
The soft tones and subtle Moroccan-inspired touches create an atmosphere of peaceful elegance.
“I wanted to create a bold impact upon entry into the home, so I used Venetian plaster on the walls and ceiling,” says interior designer Tara Shaw, describing this New Orleans foyer, where an 18th-century Italian chandelier and 19th-century footed side table add to the éclat.
“The Porter Teleo hand-painted wallpaper on the second floor of the foyer is a nod to contemporary style in the midst of European antiquity,” adds Shaw, whose attention to detail is evident in the De Medici gilded console with hand-carved faces on its legs and the perfectly preserved 17th-century statue of a Roman soldier.
In Texas Hill Country, Christina Simon, senior designer at Mark Ashby, had big ideas for a diminutive home.
“Since the house is so small and had little to no storage, we built up the wall on the left with floor-to-ceiling storage,” she says. “The back side didn’t open up to a lot of light, so it was important to keep it bright and fresh.” The bold tile pattern from Cle and glossy black paint on the Dutch door do the trick.
The bench, which has an unmistakably rustic feel, was custom built for the space in Austin. Another local find: the handmade JM Drygoods hooks on the wall.
With its refined textures, tailored finishes and contrasting hues, this entry in a spacious New York townhouse designed by Ana Luchangco, founder of InSpace NY Design, embodies an elegant minimalism that allows the bold artwork to take center stage.
In this Malibu home, Kerry Joyce designed the interior architecture to look like it was from a 1930s California beach house.
The surfboard hanging from the ceiling is from the collection of the homeowner, a Hollywood actress.
The stairs are painted in Farrow and Ball’s Arsenic #214, and the chair and lampshade are vintage.
The entryway of this Kiawah Island, South Carolina, home by Angie Hranowsky features Osborne & Little wallpaper and an Oly Studio coffee table. A Jack Youngerman lithograph hangs above the mantel in the room beyond.
The foyer of Kelly Hoppen‘s London home features a lacquer-topped table designed by Hoppen and made by Matt Stanwix, above which hang three bespoke pendant lights by Hervé Langlais for Galerie Negropontes.
A black and white marble floor and a portrait of Marilyn Monroe complete the space.
“For this foyer in Newport, Rhode Island, I embraced nature-inspired fantasy,” Fawn Galli says. “I love to design stylish foyers because it creates a transformative experience upon entering the home.
The Osborne & Little Tara wallpaper is meant to set the tone of a wild, inspired and fun interior.” Galli added to the playful vibe with a pair of Regency chairs and dog statues.
“The black and cream, checkered marble floor was original to this 1920s Spanish Revival home in Beverly Hills,” says Thomas Callaway.
Here, the stained-glass windows and the gilded ceiling were also original, but the ceiling was suffering from a bit of water damage.
“Esther Carpenter, a decorative painter from Natchez, Mississippi, repaired this ceiling, and at my request, painted the existing plaster walls to appear as blocks of limestone,” Callaway adds. The remainder of the rooms in this residence did not disappoint after the first dramatic impact of its entry foyer.”
For the Maison de Luxe showhouse at a historic mansion in Beverly Hills, Timothy Corrigan chose red wallpaper for the entryway to make the space feel warm and inviting, and because it works well with the dark wood paneling.
This Dallas home, which was an architectural restoration project by Emily Summers Studio and Chad Dorsey of More Design Build, the spare entryway has rift-cut white oak floors and a glass, metal and wood staircase.
Summers highlighted the homeowner’s art collection in the space, including collection including La Grande Roué, Paris No. 2 by Mark Mackinnon and Conversation Peace, a sculpture by Kevin Box.
For the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York, Powell & Bonnell designed the grand entryway, creating a moody, intimate feel.
The sitting area at the base of the stairs features the firm’s Kudu chairs, Narcissus table and Sentinel floor lamp, as well as a Thrush Holmes painting in a neon frame.
This 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival house in Los Angeles, updated by Brown Design Group, includes features like its original ironwork.
The designers highlighted the clients’s art collection, along with antiques and vintage pieces from Blackman Cruz, Lucca and Lawson-Fenning.
The owners of this London townhouse requested that Carden Cunietti stick to a neutral palette to highlight the architectural beauty of the residence.
“Foyers are a wonderful opportunity to invite and welcome us and guests into our homes. They set the tone of our space and hint at the style and mood within,” according to Brown Davis Interiors, who designed this home in Annapolis, Maryland.
They added a barrel ceiling to the foyer, plus an elaborate stone parquet floor and French doors at the far end of the space to bring in light and frame the home’s river views.
“The main focus of the space is a 19th-century Russian center table, with marble top and griffin embellished legs, which we secured through 1stDibs.”
Madeline Stuart designed this Spanish Revival home in Santa Monica, California, which includes an intricate marble floor devised by Stuart, which consists of three different colors of honed marble: Inca Gold, Imperial Danby, Rose Verona and Petite Granite.
The space also includes pieces like an 18th-century Italian chest and Landscape No. 556, 1998, by John Virtue.
The marble floor in this Los Angeles home by Romanek Design Studio was reclaimed from a chateau in France.
The Jacques Adnet center table is from Galerie Half, and the tufted leather stool on the stairway is by Blackman Cruz.
When Fox-Nahem Associates renovated a 1980s shingle-style house in Southampton, New York, they introduced a soothing, textured palette throughout the home.
They started with a painterly silk and wool rug by Kyle and Kath and added a French mid-19th-century center table from Balsamo and a 1960s Italian modernist pendant from Kerson Gallery.
The foyer of this Nashville home by Brockschmidt & Coleman features wallpaper by Adelphi Paper Hangings and a pendant light by Urban Electric Co.
The home includes a mix of French, English and American antiques, including this circa-1820 settee.
Shawn Henderson added a vibrant punch of color to this Greenwich Village townhouse by hanging Inside Out IV, 1966, by Paul Reed in the narrow foyer.
For the foyer of a townhouse in Toulouse, France, Suduca & Mérillou chose a black and white palette with a flash of red in the form of a Maison Jansen chair.
The space also includes a 1960s brass chandelier and a glass table lamp by Madeleine Castaing.
For this West London townhouse, Beata Heuman wanted to create a striking, imaginative and colorful space that felt current.
The firm designed the bench, which is upholstered in a Rose Cummings fabric. The floor and walls have bespoke paint finishes.
In Upstate New York, Jayne Design Studio worked with Peter Pennoyer Architects on this new home that was meant to evoke the spirit of great Hudson River Valley homes nearby.
The foyer features the sculpture Atalanta by William Henry Rinehart and custom designs that include a curved settee and column tables that reference the fate of Atalanta and her lover, who were turned into lions by an angry god.
A Louis XVI wood lantern hangs above a table by Jean-Louis Deniot in this Manhattan apartment, which he also designed. The two vintage chairs are upholstered with a fabric from Houlès.
The inspiration for the dramatic entry of this Manhattan duplex penthouse, which was designed by Cullman & Kravis in collaboration with architect John Murray, was a photograph Ellie Cullman had clipped many years prior of the staircase from West Wycombe Park, an 18th-century English country estate.
Instead of using a carpeted stair runner, the designers embellished the stairs with gilded three-dimensional motifs, or what they refer to as “staircase jewelry.”
The foyer features a French 20th-century Louis XVI–style gilt bronze lantern and the painting Bowery Burst, 1970, by Adolf Gottlieb.
The foyer establishes the refined tone of this 1920 apartment in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood by Nicole Hollis.
The space showcases part of the family’s contemporary art collection, specifically Square Word Calligraphy: After Apple Picking, 2003, by Xu Bing.
Flanking the front door of this Hudson, New York, home by MR Architecture + Decor are 18th-century baguette candle sconces that have been electrified.
Pierre Chareau–style chairs are positioned in front of the radiators, and hanging on the wall is a green and black Tulu rug.
A collection of wire insect sculptures by Jonathan Chaillou and glass text “Soon” by Rob Wynne adorn the walls of Brian J. McCarthy’s Hudson Valley weekend home, which he shares with companion and business partner, Daniel Sager.
BoydDesign juxtaposed primitivism with modernism in this apartment in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood, which has linen grasscloth wallcoverings and cork floors.
Eames + Girard La Fonda chairs flank the table, above which hangs Black/White Diptych, 2001, by Michael Boyd.
Kemble Interiors, Inc., wanted to keep the foyer of this Palm Beach home light and welcoming.
The pineapple-patterned wallpaper suggests warmth and hospitality, and it sets the stage for the British colonial theme throughout the house.
The framed botanicals reference the outdoors, and the sisal runner keeps the flavor casual and tropical.
Designed by Neal Beckstedt Studio, the foyer of this home in New York’s Westchester County features a black St. Laurent stone staircase and cast bronze balustrade.
John Ike of Ike Kligerman Barkley‘s second home is a two-level flat-roofed structure in San Diego, which was built in 1945 by a naval officer.
The entryway features a bright red Dutch door and a multicolored glass table from a furniture collection Ike designed with photographer Irene Mamiye.
This 1930s family home by Burnham Design in Santa Monica, California, is owned by longtime clients with a fearless design sensibility.
So Burnham created a layered, eclectic space that includes bold patterned wallpaper and chairs upholstered in leopard print with an ikat pillow.
A 1950s Vistosi Murano chandelier hangs in the entryway of this Austin, Texas, home by Jan Showers. The space also includes a bronzed framed mirror by Maison Jansen and a James Nares painting.
The foyer of this Los Angeles home by Nathan Turner has a simple black and white palette, which keeps the focus on the curving gallery wall of family photos and art in mismatched frames.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects designed this shingle-style house in East Quogue, New York, where the neutral foyer includes a bead-board ceiling with exposed beams and a patterned runner on the stairs.
