Upper East Side Townhouse

From "Made to Measure" - In the popular imagination, New York is a city of high-rise living - from the limestone apartment buildings on Fifth and Park Avenues to the glass towers that increasingly dominate the downtown skyline. But New York is also a city rife with single-family homes, and none are more majestic than the late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century mansions that line the side streets of the Upper East Side. Meyer Davis was commissioned to design a seven-level house that would be compatible with its landmarked neighbors on one of the toniest blocks near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The site had once held two undistinguished townhouses that had been ingloriously combined into a small apartment building, so there were no qualms about demolishing it, which gave Will and Gray a 32-foot-wide double lot for building a 14,000-square-foot residence with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms. The clients imagined the new house as an old mansion - dignified, stately, imposing - that would appear to have been thoughtfully and immaculately renovated: Old World details preserved and reinterpreted by a strict minimalist with sophistication and a sense of whimsy. Will and Gray's challenge was to synthesize the clients' wish list, editing and re-editing the floor plans and finishes as choices were made about artwork and furnishings. Their masterstroke was adding ultra-contemporary "insertions" which are both counterpoints and complements to the traditional architecture. The rigor of the collaboration with the clients yielded stunning results. White porcelain lily of the valley tendrils seem to organically emerge from the plaster wall that runs along the staircase from the first to the second floors. The blazingly white spaces have depth, warmth, and texture because they were painstakingly hand-brushed in multiple layers by master artisans. By crossing classical and avant-garde sensibilities, Will and Gray created a house that is ethereal and sublime.