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"After more than a decade spent creating sleekly urbane aeries for his city clients, interior designer Steven Gambrel has finally found a Manhattan dream house he and his partner, Chris Connor, can call their own. To almost everyone else, however, the property -- a four-story townhouse in the West Village that was built in 1827 -- initially had nightmare written all over it. Fortunately the couple has renovated several needy buildings in the past few years, including their Long Island home, and they love a challenge. Their new house provided many.   For starters, Gambrel and Connor were faced with removing nearly two centuries&amp;#039; worth of dilapidated homespun additions that gave the rear fa\u00E7ade a hodgepodge appearance. Inside, the situation was even more daunting. The handsome Federal interior was divided into nine grim single-room-occupancy apartments, one of which had been lived in by the bank robber portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie Dog Day Afternoon. &amp;quot;The house dates to the era when Greenwich Village was first booming,&amp;quot; says Gambrel, a fervent admirer and student of 18th- and 19th-century architecture, &amp;quot;so we wanted to restore the charm and clever utility that merchants&amp;#039; homes of that period were known for.&amp;quot;  Gracious reminders of the past abounded, such as the original cooking fireplace in the basement, now the focal point of the new kitchen. With its pale stone floor and uneven masonry walls, the room has a historic air, and its earthy elegance and broad stone-top table have made it a favorite dinner-party venue. Another relic is the horse walk, an alley running through the building and leading back to a carriage house. Though the path eats into valuable square footage, Gambrel was inspired by the small spaces it created above and below it. Underneath the walk he installed a handy wine cellar off the kitchen, and overhead is a minuscule bedroom accessed through a hidden door off the staircase. The designer further tweaked the bedroom&amp;#039;s diminutive proportions by covering the walls with bold ikat from Uzbekistan. &amp;quot;I think that making the most of such challenges is what gives a home personality,&amp;quot; he says.  Even for a man known for his confident mixing of styles and daring sense of scale, Gambrel&amp;#039;s deft layering of objects acquired from antiques dealers and flea markets across Europe and the States is surprising. In the library, a vintage leather-top desk made by the legendary French decorating firm Jansen is paired with a 1950s Danish chair wearing its original blue horsehair. Paintings by French and American artists hang against the shimmering gray-lacquered walls of the dining room, near an assortment of Wedgwood basalt objects and medieval alms boxes. As for the large nautical-theme painting adorning the front hall like a prized tapestry, Gambrel explains that it likely came out of a Maryland chowder house.  &amp;quot;We really didn&amp;#039;t want a house that felt like it belonged to any place or era other than the West Village right now,&amp;quot; the designer insists. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m always a little let down by homes that immediately betray an owner&amp;#039;s passion for French Deco or whatever. A bit of suspense is good.&amp;quot; One of his own passions is readily evident, although subtle: paint colors. The clover green that brightens the front hall matches a shade spotted at Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen, a neoclassical shrine to the Danish sculptor. And on a trip to India, while Gambrel and Connor&amp;#039;s fellow sightseers in Jaipur marveled at the Amber Palace&amp;#039;s mirror-encrusted reception rooms, the men preferred to hang out in the royal residence&amp;#039;s lowly administrative offices, photographing and sketching the striped walls that would end up inspiring the boldly painted bands in the vestibule of their townhouse.  As he does for many of his projects, Gambrel designed much of the upholstered furniture. Especially striking is a suite of luxuriously deep sofas and armchairs in the second floor&amp;#039;s grand blue-on-blue-on-black living room, which spans the full width of the house. There, matching fireplaces face off across a hand-loomed carpet Gambrel patterned after a cable-knit sweater Connor wears. This mesmerizing meditation on blue continues in the master bedroom, which shares the third floor with a second guest suite, this one with a pale parchment-clad bed and raw-plaster walls that provide a neutral backdrop for dozens of framed drawings.  Other finishes were chosen for aesthetic reasons, but they turned out to have good-housekeeping side effects. The stairs and halls, for example, are painted glossy dark shades that happen to not show wear and tear. A more pleasurable practicality is the bar, whose refrigerator, icemaker, and scads of audiovisual equipment hidden inside minimalist oak cabinets make it an essential for entertaining. &amp;quot;The people who built these houses knew how to live well in them,&amp;quot; Gambrel asserts with a smile. &amp;quot;We hope to follow their example.&amp;quot; Click here to view the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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