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"Douglas Brenner: Did Fred Astaire&amp;#039;s feet actually touch this floor? Garrow Kedigian: I didn&amp;#039;t find out until my co-op board interview that he lived here for about 10 years after World War II. The owners before me, who purchased the place from him, had hardly changed a thing. It was a wreck. We scraped off 32 layers of paint and wallpaper. The plaster had cracks you could stick a finger in. White shag carpeting covered the parquet! There was almost none of the original architectural detail you&amp;#039;d expect to find in a Beaux Arts Park Avenue building like this\u2014only plain square beams. Other than a glamorous past, what was the allure of those bare bones? It was the floor plan I really responded to. Much of my family background is French\u2014my grandmother&amp;#039;s Paris apartment has a classic room-to-room-to-room enfilade\u2014and the layout here felt very Parisian. I saw at once that if I cut a large opening from the dining room into what had been the master bedroom, and turned that into a library, I could have an enfilade straight through to the fireplace in there. It&amp;#039;s wonderful for entertaining. Of course, I added all the crown moldings, paneling, casing, and chair rails. Why doesn&amp;#039;t this come off as one more &amp;#039;Puttin&amp;#039; on the Ritz&amp;#039; revival? My style is streamlined classic. Tailored and crisp. If you go too heavy with the architecture, you lose the contemporary aspect of a space. Although I have a passion for flea markets\u2014nothing here is new, apart from the upholstery\u2014I am not designing for 100 years ago. Some midcentury and contemporary pieces are threaded through the antiques and found objects. Painting an entire room a strong color, including the trim, gives it an edgy freshness, because the color becomes part of the architecture. High-gloss paint adds dimension and strength to any pigment. I don&amp;#039;t like white\u2014it&amp;#039;s such a developer default. Endless white rooms are depressing. Where did you find that dreamy blue? When I was 10, my parents took us on a trip to India. New Delhi is where I began to understand the power of design. We visited a palace where one room was bright turquoise, and the ceiling was open to the sky. It was the most incredible space I&amp;#039;d ever seen. I said, &amp;#039;One day, I&amp;#039;m going to have a blue room that gives you this feeling.&amp;#039; My library does it for me. I struggled with the actual shade, because what looked great in daylight wouldn&amp;#039;t look good at night, and vice versa. We tried at least 25 samples. I would come at all hours to see how it felt. I kept saying, &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s too juvenile,&amp;#039; until the painter got it just serious enough by adding black. This bold geometric rug is a terrific foil to the muted Persian carpet in the dining room. That rug looks beautifully threadbare only because it&amp;#039;s turned upside down. If you saw the other side, you would die. It&amp;#039;s so boisterous, so noisy. Persian rugs can overwhelm a room; I do that to calm them down. I bring clients here to show them ideas like that\u2014or painting window frames black to sharpen the view. Would you call the living room caf\u00E9 au lait? My painter calls it &amp;#039;brown paper bag.&amp;#039; It was inspired by a mesmerizing color I first saw in a townhouse [interior designer] Tim Whealon did for William Reilly, a fabulous collector of antiquities. That deep mocha brought an almost homey feeling to objects you&amp;#039;d expect to see against white museum walls. At night, these walls are quite mysterious, and the high-gloss ceiling reflects yellow cabs going up and down Park. Your asymmetrical furniture arrangements make inviting detours. The living room was tricky, because with the French doors, the fireplace, and the opening to the dining room, you have only one good wall for furnishings. I knew immediately I wanted an intimate seating group by the fireplace\u2014the angled banquette and the wing chair\u2014but the room is too big for just that. I put in a floating sofa and set it perpendicular to the French doors, so they are what you see first when you walk in. Why is the dining room table off-center? I wanted to keep the central view through my enfilade open. But really, it&amp;#039;s an extravagance today to make a dining room just a dining room. I have people over for dinner, but I also work at my laptop here, play the piano, and host amateur recitals for friends. Whatever&amp;#039;s going on, the cabriole chair legs dance around that deconstructivist table. Swan Lake meets The Rite of Spring? I like to throw in a foreign element, something askew that livens the mix of old and new. On the dining room banquette, we reused the ancient velvet that still hung at these windows when I moved in. It&amp;#039;s a conversation starter at parties to tell guests they&amp;#039;re sitting on Fred Astaire&amp;#039;s curtains. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.housebeautiful.com/home-remodeling/interior-designers/interviews/a1458/garrow-kedigian-interview-1213/>