Second Time Around: Dufner Heighes Redesigns NoHo Model Apartment
Tricked out in boho decor, brilliantly conceived by Dufner Heighes for a fictional young family with two imaginary children, the model apartment for a ground-up building in NoHo got snapped up right away. The buyers, in reality, were an older couple, suburban empty-nesters looking for a swish pied-à-terre in lieu of staying in a luxury hotel when visiting the city. And they asked Dufner Heighes back to revamp and personalize the 2,600-square-foot space while making clear that they expected more than a repeat performance.
“These are our most design-savvy and adventurous clients,” Daniel Heighes Wismer explains. “They really challenged us to find exceptional new things.” Starting nearly from scratch significantly upped the stakes in the relentless pursuit of downtown glamour.
Today, the living area juxtaposes curvy yellow Vladimir Kagan lounge chairs with a sexy sectional covered in cream bouclé. “It’s a party sofa,” Greg Dufner says.
At a Tyler Hays dining table topped in ash wood, he and Wismer placed new versions of an iconic 1952 chair with a saddle-leather sling seat and a T-shape steel frame, the latter now finished in a more luxurious oiled bronze. A large, multi-globed Lindsey Adelman chandelier joins one of Hays’s signature round mirrors in the entry, where Dufner Heighes added a rustic-looking door to conceal the standard painted metal door of the elevator.
More angular than the Adelman chandelier are a pair by Bec Brittain. They visually unify the guest room and the study, physically unified by a new doorway to create a chic suite. Thanks to the chandeliers’ soft LED tubes, the light is surprisingly warm.
Carrara marble, chosen by architect-developer DDG Partners, remains in the kitchen and master bathroom. To embellish DDG’s double-sink vanity, Dufner Heighes replaced the standard drawer pulls with fanciful bronze butterflies. Try finding that at a hotel.
