In 2016, the New York Times ran a story on benches in Central Park, detailing the nearly 4,300 benches that have been adopted by individuals and inscribed with dedications and other sentiments.
The story is a reminder of how the park intersects with New Yorkers’ lives and how individuals can leave a little bit of themselves there by which to be remembered.
For others, simply seeing the park, in all its leafy glory, is inspiration enough. One such bolt of inspiration hit a couple as they went about making a home along Central Park West, in a stately limestone building just north of Columbus Circle that overlooks the park.
The couple, who travel extensively, tapped architect Susan Yun of Yun Architecture to reimagine the apartment and Zen Restoration to complete the build-out. Yun had worked with the couple previously, on another home, and though this space was in decent condition, its moldings gave the couple pause. They would need extensive maintenance to repair cracks—to say nothing of what the owners felt was a simple style that wasn’t quite to their taste. In addition to wanting to invest in a new molding style throughout the home, the couple drew inspiration from the airy openness of Paris’s Haussmannian, late-19th-century apartments.
Yun wanted to be careful with tipping into imitation, though, and began looking for stylistic cues a little closer to home—in the neighborhood itself. Beyond the coveted prewar buildings that line Central Park West, there was, of course, the park itself and the apartment’s views of it. Yun’s concept for the space shifted toward the park’s quiet grandeur.
“We thought about how [to] bring nature into the [space],” says Yun, explaining the turn away from heavy moldings. “We started to think about the moldings and how we could [create ones] that [were] much lighter.” With the couple, she developed ideas and looked for inspiration for a garden-like pattern with leaves and vines. When it came time to find someone to craft the moldings, the couple had only one person in mind that they thought could do it right: Foster Reeve.
Yun says that while there are several talented plaster molding fabricators in the city, Reeve stands out. “I think it would be fair to say he’s considered one of the best, if not the best, plaster mold-making shops in New York,” she adds.
Yun considers this project—which also includes a new archway between the living and dining rooms, a new kitchen, thoughtful closet millwork, and flush doorways—to be all about the details. The owners, she says, were very interested in meeting Foster and visiting his Brooklyn shop, looking at the clay form when it was first done, and then going back for a final check,” Yun adds. “The whole education and the process was fascinating to [them].”
The foliage-decorated crown moldings are found in the living room, dining room, and master bedroom. In addition to all the crowns, Reeve fashioned the casings that frame all of the openings, doors, and windows. Doors throughout are outfitted with brass handles and run flush with the walls, a typical detail in prewar apartments.
The other interventions that Yun introduced are anchored by a new archway, reminiscent of prewar buildings, between the living and dining room, which replaced small pocket doors. “The owner wanted a more open space,” she says. “She wanted more of a visual connection, a better flow, and more space for when she entertained.”
They also refinished floors in a light honey color throughout the home (the walls are primarily painted with White DKC-67 from Donald Kaufman Color) to reflect the owners’ preferred light and clean color palette. Of the wall color, the owners say that it “it makes a nice canvas for the plaster and any future art you may want to put up... It’s simple and draws you to the architecture and lines of the apartment.”
The kitchen was in dire need of a change to fit with the new concept (the cabinets were originally yellow and the countertops green). The owners were interested in a kitchen that was sleek, modern, and functional that could offset the more traditional moldings, so Yun installed a Bulthaup system, countertops made from statuary marble, and a stainless steel LaCanche range.
The closets in the master bedroom were transformed from very simple white lacquer to white oak millwork, brass fixtures, and an ingenious lighting system. “It’s a low-voltage system that [has] lighting integrated into the shelves,” Yun explains. “[The lighting is] not wired, but there’s a contact in the back that allows the shelf to be lit wherever you put [it].”
For Yun, these types of thoughtful details made the renovation as much about the process as the end result. “This project was very much about the craft, the pure joy and excitement about learning about how things are [made],” she says. “It was nice to be able to have gone through this with the owner... it was a good learning experience for all of us.”