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"Every winter, Courtney and Karen Lord would escape the deep freeze of Aspen, Colorado, where they live most of the year in a cutting-edge rammed-earth house, for sunny Miami Beach. He would play golf. She would walk or bike to the beach. They&amp;#039;d prowl in art galleries, poke around shops, walk to the movies\u2014and talk about finding a more permanent winter home. Finally, Karen issued an ultimatum: &amp;quot;If we&amp;#039;re going to do this, let&amp;#039;s do it.&amp;quot; The house hunt began in earnest.  Days passed. They found a condominium building they liked, but not one available apartment suited. Then their broker offered up one he was using as an office. &amp;quot;It had high ceilings and great light,&amp;quot; says Karen. &amp;quot;It just felt good. I believe that when you find the right place, it speaks to you.&amp;quot; The Lords had been spoken to\u2014and they responded. They bought it.   The couple had already worked with New York\u2013based designer Larry Laslo on their Aspen house (MH, Mar &amp;#039;09), so it seemed natural for them to turn to him again. &amp;quot;Larry gets us,&amp;quot; says Karen succinctly, &amp;quot;and we get him. Plus, if you have an idea, he never shoots it down. It&amp;#039;s always an adventure.&amp;quot; And the admiration is mutual. Laslo praises Karen as well as Courtney, who loves the collaborative process of design and is willing to take some daring leaps. &amp;quot;He is very experimental,&amp;quot; says the designer approvingly.  So the couple decided to keep the ceilings high and to let all the air-conditioning ducts hang out, loft-style, although they opted to give the galvanized metal a coat of paint. Walls and floors were kept white (Sherwin Williams White on the former and Carrara marble on the latter), creating what Laslo terms &amp;quot;a huge white box that sets the stage for blasts of color.&amp;quot;   &amp;quot;I like to exaggerate scale,&amp;quot; says Laslo. &amp;quot;Things should either be big and important or small and precious.&amp;quot; Those dichotomies\u2014as well as contrasts of color and style\u2014have become Laslo hallmarks. He is unafraid, for example, to make a centerpiece by taking an enormous silver vessel and planting it with wheatgrass (more often relegated to counters in juice bars), then adding purple orchids.  Similarly, he chose to cover the cross-legged Christopher Guy dining chairs in two, almost diametrically opposite, fabrics\u2014a pitch-perfect polished white patent leather for the seat (&amp;quot;drop a meatball and get out the Windex,&amp;quot; jokes the designer) and a Bergamo fabric from his personal textile collection. &amp;quot;I know it may seem irreverent,&amp;quot; Laslo says, &amp;quot;but I really do think about these things for a long time.&amp;quot;  Both designer and clients like clean, spare surfaces. This taste manifests itself fully in the Bulthaup kitchen Laslo designed to be as minimal and unobtrusive as possible. Shut the cabinet doors, clear off all the horizontal surfaces, he says, &amp;quot;and the kitchen becomes one big lacquer wall with a single stainless counter. It&amp;#039;s meant to be a blank face.&amp;quot; Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Decorating with Art&amp;quot;.   Laslo jokes that he is so obsessive about counter-scaping that &amp;quot;in the bathroom, even the mouthwash is kept in a crystal decanter.&amp;quot; Medicine bottles, tubes of toothpaste and &amp;quot;junk&amp;quot; are kept in drawers and off, in the case of the Lord residence, the white Calcutta marble surfaces. The bathrooms, however, do get the full glam treatment: one received a Bisazza tile flower mosaic (seen through a floor-to-ceiling glass shower enclosure) and the other sports a patterned, sequined wallpaper.  &amp;quot;Art dominates this apartment,&amp;quot; says Laslo. The Lords and their like-minded designer canvassed annual Art Basel exhibitions and explored the burgeoning local gallery scene to select new and sometimes edgy work to add to the collection.  The couple&amp;#039;s collection includes both painting and photography, and they are unafraid of works that might be deemed controversial. In decorating the condo, design decisions deferred to the presence of the collection. &amp;quot;Art to us is not something you match with a sofa,&amp;quot; says Karen. The living room is of course the primary showcase. Some of Laslo&amp;#039;s blasts of color come in the form of the softening and inviting pillows that line the white leather sofa; others are in the paintings themselves or the dining area beyond.  Some of the references in the design are subtle, others less so. And for all its sophistication, the apartment has its moments of coy humor as well. Laslo likes to term the master bedroom&amp;#039;s Christopher Guy headboard, with its abstract sculpted fabric, &amp;quot;the Flintstones meet Hollywood glam.&amp;quot; Add to that a mirrored chest of drawers (Laslo has one himself that once belonged to Helena Rubinstein, &amp;quot;who used it to store shoes,&amp;quot; he says), gold-leaf drum side tables and a fanciful feathered White Nimbus chandelier and the Hollywood look is complete.  The picture-perfect quality is no accident. Laslo started out as a painter, then went on to window display before taking up product and interior design. He understands composition in two and three dimensions. &amp;quot;I really see the whole room, every room, as a photograph in my mind before it is finished,&amp;quot; he explains. What the Pros Know  Larry Laslo likes to mix fabrics both for aesthetic and practical purposes. The combination of three shades of silk on the headboard in the master bedroom speaks to the former (the finishes are so subtle that you have to look carefully to see what makes the colors shimmer). Then there is the pragmatic. In bedrooms and elsewhere, he uses fabrics of differing weight, tone and translucence to control sunshine by day and keep the rooms dark at night. To accomplish this, he pairs sheer drapes with solid ones. While that may be common enough, Laslo&amp;#039;s arrangement is &amp;quot;backward&amp;quot;: He hangs the sheers in front, on the room side, and puts the more opaque drapes against the window wall. This allows him to use patterned sheers\u2014above, a zebra sheer called Timberland, designed by Laslo for Robert Allen\u2014over a less penetrable layer of pale green silk. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Decorating with Art&amp;quot;. Click here to see the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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