TriBeCa Renovation by Damon Liss and Wunderground Makes Room for Play
Call it vertical integration. Damon Liss Design renovates and furnishes, then the Liss Real Estate Group sells the apartment. Or vice versa. Both entities share a storefront and, naturally, repeat clientele. Take one particular TriBeCa property. Damon Liss helped a young family acquire a pair of three-bedroom units to be knocked together during a developer’s conversion of two warehouses with gorgeous arched windows. Wunderground Architecture + Design principal Nancy Nienberg handled the architectural aspects of the combination job, Liss the finishing touches.
Years later, the owners returned to Nienberg and Liss for assistance in up-sizing: adding the apartment above to convert into the children’s private realm. There would be a bedroom apiece for the daughter and the two sons, plus a shared playroom with a loft tucked under the skylit slanted roof. Liss created a fun-loving vibe with clustered chandeliers that look a little like satellites in orbit, colorful glass sconces installed in a grid, round target-motif rugs, and wall coverings in patterns from checkerboard to intricate stripes and graffiti swirls.
The new total of 6,400 square feet left “plenty of space for luxury,” Nienberg points out. Dark-stained oak floorboards flow throughout, even including the master bathroom, where the capacious shower enclosure sports multiple showerheads. The master suite occupies a split-level below the main level, home to a major art collection. And both levels are “splashed with vintage and contemporary pieces that give personality and life,” Liss says. For instance, he adores the bronze Philip and Kelvin LaVerne cocktail table topped with delicate Swedish mid-century ceramic vases. Ditto the many rugs in Chinese wild silk.
He goes on to note that the rugs offer unexpected family-friendly durability. “When nachos are put out during the Super Bowl, people spill,” he says. You’d never know.
