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"View Slideshow\n\nKatia and Marielle Lab\u00E8que, the world-famous piano duo, have a nomadic streak. Since recording their first two-piano album in 1970, the sisters have moved all over Western Europe, from the Basque region of southern France (where they grew up) to Paris, London, Florence, and, since 2005, Rome.\n\nWhen the women began looking for a place in the Eternal City, Katia says they \u201Clonged for an apartment with a terrace, but we couldn\u2019t find one that could accommodate our Steinways.\u201D They eventually settled for a two-bedroom flat in a 17th-century palace, a building suffused with all the decaying magnificence of Baroque Rome. The apartment, in comparison, was disappointing, having been reduced by previous owners to an Escher-like maze of staircases, corridors, and mezzanines. Helping the sisters to revive its underlying gracefulness were architect Alessio Lipari and the superstar Belgian collector, antiques dealer, and interior designer Axel Vervoordt, who has collaborated with them on every one of their homes over the past 25 years.\n\nThe Lab\u00E8ques met Vervoordt in the early \u201980s, around the time they electrified music lovers with their version of George Gershwin\u2019s \u201CRhapsody in Blue.\u201D Katia has a vivid recollection of stepping into Vervoordt\u2019s booth at the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris and seeing a dramatic staircase wrapped in handwoven white linen on which the dealer had placed 7,800 Ming-dynasty vases. As she explains, \u201CI walked into this amazing new world that entirely changed my perceptions.\u201D Not long after, the sisters were in Antwerp to perform in a concert. The dealer-decorator and his wife, May, invited them to their nearby castle for lunch. \u201CThey had moved in that same day,\u201D Marielle marvels. \u201CThere were lorries and movers everywhere\u2014it was chaos! But May prepared the loveliest meal with produce from her garden, and we began talking about a house we had just bought. Katia and I were young pianists and couldn\u2019t possibly afford Axel, but he said he loved working with musicians, so money didn\u2019t matter.\u201D\n\nSince then the Lab\u00E8ques and Vervoordt have developed an intense rapport the designer calls \u201Ca kind of brotherhood of aesthetic sensibilities.\u201D So much so that the three could carry out most discussions about the Rome apartment remotely. \u201CAs all of our busy schedules made it impossible to arrange meetings here, this home was put together in large part via e-mail,\u201D says Katia. The sisters\u2019 personal lives are similarly far-flung, she points out: Katia\u2019s longtime companion and frequent collaborator is David Chalmin, a French musician and producer, while Marielle, though she lives in Rome, is often on the road with her Paris-based husband, the celebrated conductor Semyon Bychkov.\n\nOne lesson the women have learned over years of working with Vervoordt is to always look for treasures beneath the surface\u2014literally. In Marielle\u2019s bedroom, for instance, workmen painstakingly removed layers of paint and discovered romantically faded 18th-century painted panels bordered with delicate palmettes. Modern amenities, meanwhile, are carefully camouflaged, another of the designer\u2019s hallmarks. Kitchen appliances are concealed inside a rustic cabinet made from a battered pine door dating from the 1600s. The high-tech Dolby home-theater system hides behind a rich silk curtain. Vervoordt also laid his hands on antique metal rods that had once supported a roof at the Louvre and composed them into a railing for Katia\u2019s mezzanine bedroom.\n\nThough some of the apartment\u2019s furniture has followed the Lab\u00E8ques for decades, including a massive antique Venetian mirrored cabinet, much of it came from Kanaal, Vervoordt\u2019s renowned shop in the Belgian town of Wijnegem. Several pieces are archetypal Vervoordt designs, among them the living room\u2019s sumptuously deep slipcovered sofa. Weathered architectural elements, such as the stone basins in the kitchen and baths, came from Kanaal as well.\n\nFor the short term, at least, it doesn\u2019t look like the sisters will be doing a great deal of relaxing amid this atmospheric splendor. In addition to performing together and with other musicians (Sting and Herbie Hancock among them) and supporting young artists and promoting classical music through the KML Fondazione, the duo will soon release a collection of \u201960s-inspired alternative rock and experimental music, including works by Chalmin.\n\nAnother recent Lab\u00E8que project, overseen by architect Serena Mignatti, was turning a 1920s former nursing-school building in one of Rome\u2019s working-class areas into a recording studio. Vervoordt left his inimitable touch there, too, introducing some of his monumental upholstered pieces and a rough-hewn farmhouse table and benches that complement rather than compete with the rugged surroundings. Says Katia, \u201CAxel is the only person we know who treats space the same way we read a musical score\u2014exploring new areas of feeling while holding on to the rhythm.\u201D\n\nClick here to see an exclusive video interview with the Lab\u00E8que sisters.\n\nClick here to view the slide show of the Katia and Marielle Lab\u00E8que&amp;#39;s apartment and studio in Rome."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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