House Tour: Alberto and Jeff Inhabit an Icon (Phase I)
Name: Alberto and Jeff
Location: Fort Greene/BAM, Brooklyn
Size: 1360 sqft. 2-bdrm condo
Years lived in: 1.5 months
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Alberto and Jeff had a year and a half between closing and moving in to their new condo, to plan. According to Alberto, a house tour veteran, Jeff made multiple copies of a detailed floorplan of the new apartment and used the interim 18 months to sketch ideas as well as to plot out the sequence of events that would occur the moment they were handed the key. The apartment is in its first phase of completion…
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The living room is the most complete as it is the first room one sees when entering the apartment. Jeff saw this as a priority so as to be shielded from all the move-in work yet completed. No one wants to walk into a new apartment and be greeted by boxes for weeks on end! Jeff, VP of visual merchandising for a big clothing company, is used to whipping a scene into shape very efficiently and very quickly. Within 2 weeks of moving in, the living room looked as it does here. Finished.
“Jeff has more stuff and is more of a sensualist,” says Alberto as he shows me around their sleek new condo — a recent conversion in the Williamsburg Savings Bank. Both Jeff and Alberto used to live in very small apartments in the West Village. So, there are only a few pieces of furniture here that they brought with them. The space calls for larger scale items such as the dining room table, bed, sofa, and credenza, which were all site specific purchases.
Jeff and Alberto love to travel and when they do, they often bring back a treasure trove of local folk art and artifacts. The red theme of the living room accommodates equal parts Latin American and South East Asian imports. The red wall unites the wide range of oranges, pinks, and reds on display. Alberto and Jeff both came with big art collections, much of which still isn’t on display! Prints and drawings by known artists are complemented by photos taken by Alberto during their travels.
Jeff and Alberto are faced with aligning their styles and their various and sundry possessions. Alberto is more of a minimalist, so to compromise for Jeff’s ultra stimulating living room, the plan is for the bedroom to remain calm and spare. For now, the small, all black TV room also serves as an office and a guest bedroom. Plans are to take a smaller room currently stuffed with yet unpacked boxes and make it a dedicated office space. There are also plans to create a breakfast bar and tile the backsplash in the kitchen.
Off to a great start, there’s more to go before this apartment meets Alberto and Jeff’s rigorous standards. Check back in the next couple of months, to see Phase II.
AT Survey
Style: global modern
Inspiration: flea markets, airports, crafts from everywhere we go, and New York
Favorite Element: hard to say…the black room is very fun.
Biggest Challenge: Coordinated richness of so many things.
What Friends Say: love it.
Proudest DIY: cedar closets.
Biggest Indulgence: cedar closets.
Best Advice: Make every nook a place you want to be in.
Dream Source: every weekend, the Paris flea market.
Resources:
DARR: vintage and salvage pieces, but also do custom work. Alberto and Jeff had them fabricate their steel and glass bookcases.
ABC Carpet: Sofa, carpets, credenza in bedroom, vintage dining room chairs
Restoration Hardware: yet to be installed fixture replacements in master bath
CB2: globe lights
Urban Outfitters: little spotlights
DWR: captain’s bed
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