Brooke Shields beautiful Brownstone reminds me so much of elegant London townhouses. I am sure the interiors are inspired from the old money confidence of patrician homes in Mayfair or Saint-Germain. The house looks so well lived in, that it is quite impressive to know that this look has been created from scratch – for the house was just a derelict shell when Brooke bought it. “It needed a complete gut,” she says in the Architectural Digest article, “but after a quick walk-through, I could see our future there. My bathtub in a niche by a window, our daughters’ playroom on the top floor. A light-flooded kitchen with a big hearth and a balcony”.
She along with interior designer David Flint Woods and architects MADE, have filled the house with specially selected pieces from her childhood and her mother’s flea market finds. Eccentric buys such as a job lot of vintage hardware was used by MADE to accessorize the cabinetry they designed for the townhouse. A wood tub, crafted by a canoe maker in Idaho, was installed in the guest bathroom and a cast-off marble slab that was scavenged at a county fair was re-cut as a vanity top.
MADE’s mandate was to salvage as much of the house’s original detail and structural integrity as possible. This has been balanced by infusing a sense of fun and wit in the interiors. Jolts of color and asymmetry give the decor an edgy downtown personality. As Flint Wood says “In my design, as in a British drawing room comedy, there is a subtle tension between propriety and irreverence. He has created an urbane mix of furnishings and materials that includes colonial rattan, Asian porcelain, hand-blocked Zuber wallpaper, neoclassical Italian tables, Chinese lacquer consoles—and art by Keith Haring.
The living room features Louis XVI–style armchairs, a
French Empire commode, and a 1970s Lucite-base cocktail table. A Keith Haring
painting and portraits of Shields’s two
daughters hang on the walls .
Linen cushions are by John Robshaw ; the settee is George III, the curule-form stool
is covered in a David Hicks fabric from Lee Jofa, and the jute rug is by Pottery Barn.
In the
family room, portraits of Shields and her children are propped alongside
works by
Richard Avedon and Adam Fuss.
Don't miss the Louis Vuitton vintage trunk!
I love how the Chinese porcelain jars are placed under the console, like an afterthought!
A drawing by Haring, used to wrap a gift for the actress,
overlooks a chrome bench from Vermillion in the vestibule.
In the master bedroom, an Anglo-Indian tester bed
and John Robshaw block-printed linens.
Guest Bedroom, don't miss the stack of vintage suitcases in the corner.
All images and product details courtesy Architectural Digest.
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