Miami art collector

High rise raw space.

So eyebrows rose when Dana Nicholson, a young Manhattan designer who earned his stripes in the office of master Modernist Melvin Dwork, bravely went where shell-shocked peers feared to tread: Cowles new apartment in Balharbour, Florida, 16 floors above the Atlantic. It was big (5400 square feet), it was raw (concrete floors no interior walls), it had a cinematic view. But Cowles didn't scare Nicholson: he had known her for years through her art-dealer son, Charles Cowles.

"Sure, she's opinionated, but that's what made the job great." says Nicholson, whose goatee and biker boots belie a lively knowledge of everything from off-the-edge art furniture to the chic frivolities of Jansen et Cie, postwar Paris's preeminent decorating firm. "Jan knows exactly what she wants: function, function, function. But that doesn't mean she is rigid." Consider the lacquered persimmon-colored cabinets in the master bathroom. Cowles fought against them but finally cried uncle. "Dana was right," she says. "the room needed a spark."

excerpt by Mitchell Owens, for Elle Decor magazine.