October 25, 2026Outdoor space and natural light are possibly the most sought-after amenities in an urban setting. Those twin assets drew a longtime downtown Manhattan couple to a residential tower on the High Line designed by Heatherwick Studio and completed in 2020. Named the Lantern House, it sports distinctive oversize bay windows that indeed resemble nautical lamps shining amid the buildings of Chelsea’s vibrant skyline.
The couple planned to combine two side-by-side apartments and knew exactly who they wanted to design the interiors: Katie Lydon. The dynamic London-born, New York–based designer had created the color-saturated interiors of their previous apartment. And when she first met the couple, 16 years ago, “it was an instant connection,” Lydon remembers. “It feels like we’ve grown up together.”
The current renovation was a major undertaking. Lydon, working with Nickolas Kazalas of NDKazalas Architecture P.C., first removed all the partition walls to maximize the three-bedroom space, gaining storage areas and reorganizing the rooms to “just make sense,” she says. “One of the two kitchens had to be removed, the other was in the wrong place, and the primary bath wasn’t great. Then, all of a sudden, you are redoing everything, down to the closet interiors.”
The couple’s original apartment, in Soho, was crafted with their children in mind, but they are now empty-nest grandparents and wanted a more sophisticated setting. Gold and silver elements are woven into the design scheme, from the furniture to the walls. “She loves interesting fabrics with texture and shimmer,” the designer says of the wife. “This was a modern take on Fortuny elegance and finery.”
Lydon established a cosmopolitan mood in the entry, with walls that literally glow with hand-applied crosshatched gold leaf. She paired curved-back antique side chairs from Karl Kemp with an antique Italian console from Cosulich, both 1stDibs finds. The butterflies in a pair of paintings by Ashley Longshore appear to flutter in the golden light. “Sometimes it feels shimmery, sometimes it feels very muted, and it always feels very, very warm — it’s like walking through gold,” Lydon says of the entry. “It’s the most glamorous thing I’ve ever done.”
The sitting room, meanwhile, might be a contender for the second-most glamorous room of Lydon’s career. It’s all seductive arcs and inviting surfaces. A graphic rug by Jean de Merry anchors the intimate space, in which Lydon gathered a custom-made curved sofa; elliptical lounge chairs by DeMuro Das, upholstered in an abstract-patterned Kravet fabric; a sculpted metal coffee table by Silas Seandel; and a chic glass-top side table by Roberto Giulio Rida from 1stDibs. A vintage glass chandelier by J.T. Kalmar glitters above, while sheer curtains soften one of the muscular bay windows. “It’s a special little room for drinks,” Lydon says. “It’s luminous. It feels otherworldly. The furniture embraces you as you experience its glow, the view and one another.”
The living room, where the couple watches TV with children and grandchildren when they visit, is at one end of the open, loft-like public spaces, which also include the kitchen and dining area. Venetian plaster applied to the walls was buffed and waxed to a pleasing pale gray, providing “a lovely counterbalance,” Lydon says, to the golden entry. A capacious custom sectional sofa joins custom-made armchairs covered in a silvery chenille stripe by Toyine Sellers and a vintage glass-and-steel cocktail table, another 1stDibs find, by Warren Platner for Knoll. But it’s the rug that grabs the eye with its splotchy navy-and-white pattern resembling splattered paint. “I stumbled across the rug and thought, [My client] will love this. And she did,” the designer says.
In the dining area, Lydon mixed furnishings from the couple’s previous apartment with new elements. On 1stDibs, she tracked down more of the Art Deco chairs by Jindřich Halabala that the couple already owned to fit around a long wood table by Uhuru Design. An atmospheric abstract triptych painting by Tamar Zinn plays off a pair of pastel-hued globe light fixtures by the glass master Lindsey Adelman that are as fanciful by day when the bulbs are unlit as by night when they twinkle like constellations. “It’s calm, quiet luxury,” Lydon says.
The couple’s bedroom is infused with an ethereal radiance via the color pink — not the candy hue but a soft muted brownish rose that feels like the freshest of neutrals. It’s a restorative backdrop to the jaw-dropping views through the bubble windows. “When it comes to pink, when it’s good, it’s good,” says Lydon, who is in the midst of redoing her own apartment in the color.
She knows her color wheels. Lydon studied at London’s Wimbledon College of Arts before attending Cambridge University, and since 2002, when she launched her interior design practice in New York, she’s garnered praise for conceiving captivating color palettes and polished compositions, deftly deployed in residential projects.
The mix of furnishings in the bedroom — spare yet polished, as in the rest of the apartment — include vintage Milo Baughman chairs and a Baughman bench upholstered in a rosy Dedar fabric, at the foot of the bed. Sputnik-style rock-crystal chandeliers by Venfield, which resemble the ones in the Metropolitan Opera House, sparkle above.
“I’m judicious with furnishings,” Lydon says. “I personally do not like to live with clutter. I don’t know whether you attract clients like you are, but most of my clients aren’t maximalist with stuff. They just want the right things.”
