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"Homeowners who meekly accept what the world offers without putting up a fight should start taking notes right now. &amp;quot;I just don&amp;#039;t like to settle,&amp;quot; Josie Natori proclaims, her lithe frame clad in a little something from Christian Dior couture. &amp;quot;Good enough is never good enough.&amp;quot; The pursuit of perfection has fueled the fashion designer&amp;#039;s life of exceptional accomplishment. It also explains a certain paradox. Though Natori launched her eponymous empire of sensuous lingerie and at-home apparel 30 years ago with a philosophy of &amp;quot;enhancing a woman&amp;#039;s appearance by making her feel good about herself,&amp;quot; a Manhattan apartment with the same intent proved to be elusive. But now, the CEO and her husband, Ken, the chairman of the company, have come home. &amp;quot;This is the Natori sensibility,&amp;quot; the entrepreneur says, sweeping one bejeweled hand to indicate the living room&amp;#039;s calm, pearly hues and fine-boned Asian artifacts. &amp;quot;This is a Natori home.&amp;quot; While the couple, who met in the 1970s when both were working as investment bankers, have long maintained satellite dwellings\u2014their stunning pied-\u00E0-terre in Paris was decorated by Jacques Grange\u2014their New York existence has been spent upgrading to bigger, if not always big enough, apartments in the same building. Eventually, the unit next door came on the market, allowing the empty-nesters (son Kenneth works for the family firm) the opportunity to take over an entire floor. Now they had masses of space, about 5,000 square feet, but what to do with it? And who could be trusted to oversee its transformation?  One great perfectionist deserves another. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re all about process,&amp;quot; says Calvin Tsao, an architect whose award-winning firm, Tsao &amp;amp;amp; McKown, had earlier reworked Natori&amp;#039;s corporate offices. Even if that process, like this one, ends up taking seven years to complete, including one wall that was painted five times. &amp;quot;Did it become expensive?&amp;quot; Natori asks rhetorically. &amp;quot;Yes. And we drove the contractors crazy.&amp;quot; From the start, Tsao and his clients agreed that the redesign would call on their shared Asian origins and sensibility\u2014Natori was born in the Philippines, her husband is a third-generation Japanese American, and Tsao hails from Hong Kong\u2014and incorporate the Western influences they all share. As the architect explains, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about fusion, both aesthetic and structural.&amp;quot; The toughest job was to unify the neighboring properties into a single residence. A fire staircase made a seamless combination impossible, but that constraint was turned into an asset: The emergency passage provides a natural demarcation between the private and public spaces. Smartly reconfigured, one zone contains the master suite, Ken&amp;#039;s library, Josie&amp;#039;s boudoir, his-and-her baths, and a kitchen just big enough for squeezing orange juice and brewing coffee in the mornings. The larger part of the apartment contains a guest suite, living room, dining room, and what Tsao calls &amp;quot;a real working kitchen.&amp;quot; Many design decisions were dictated by the objects that the Natoris love as well as how the couple lives. (During the seven-year construction process, they stayed in one half of the apartment while the other half was being renovated.) Selections from Josie&amp;#039;s antique-textile collection are displayed as wall hangings; others have been made into covers for sliding storage panels. For maximum comfort, the master bedroom is equipped with tatami-like shutters that block light and noise. Since Natori is an accomplished pianist with two gleaming Steinway grands\u2014to celebrate her 50th birthday a decade ago, she invited nearly 3,000 guests to Carnegie Hall to see her perform Schumann and Rachmaninoff with the Orchestra of St. Luke&amp;#039;s\u2014a music room was created. Ken, a news and golf junkie, requested several concealed flat-screen TVs, plus two holes in his carpeted library floor for putting practice. &amp;quot;We really riffed off each other,&amp;quot; Tsao says. Struck by the beauty of Natori&amp;#039;s haute-couture wardrobe, the architect thought it was a shame to relegate the finery to a standard closet. He created a luxurious boudoir and dressing room for her, where the dresses, sweaters, and glittering accessories are displayed against walls and shelves painted cinnabar red. The imperial color is repeated in the surface of Natori&amp;#039;s desk and the silk-covered shoe stuffers. The apartment&amp;#039;s palette has been guided by fashion too. The calibrated balance of cool and warm colors, such as burnt orange paired with eggplant, was inspired by the work of two couturiers Natori admires: Charles James and Yves Saint Laurent. Then there are the subtle flourishes that Tsao dubs &amp;quot;time-release design.&amp;quot; A carved-jade foo dog stands guard in the entrance hall, but spotlighting the stone would have been too harsh. Tsao came up with a resin wall that allows natural light to softly filter in from the neighboring music room. Nearby, in the living room, reflections cast by a milky glass coffee table give the walls sun-dappled good cheer even when it is cloudy outside. This attention to detail has resulted in a home that the Natoris find much more than &amp;quot;good enough.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I am not ever moving,&amp;quot; the lady of the house firmly declares. And believe it or not, she actually sounds\u2014dare we say it?\u2014settled. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/a3784/perfect-timing-a-43766/>