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"ELLE DECOR: Is this really the third apartment your clients have had in the same building?  Adam Rolston: Yes. Donna Emma and her husband, Larry Davis, joke that it took that long to get an apartment with a park view, but they&amp;#039;ve got one now\u2014on the 11th floor. The living room is the only room that doesn&amp;#039;t face Central Park. ED: Did you have to do much to it?  AR: It was a gut renovation, right down to the concrete\u2014all 2,600 square feet of it.  ED: Why so extensive?  AR: It&amp;#039;s a beautiful belle epoque\u2013style building, but it was actually built in 1925. My clients wanted all new wiring, all new systems. The apartment was not in very good condition, and the layout just didn&amp;#039;t meet the needs of the family. ED: What were the couple looking for?  AR: Well, it involved a lot of balancing. I worked in very close collaboration with Donna. I think part of what she was after was a clean slate, something you might associate with a stark-white loft, a blank canvas with limitless possibilities. Open and airy were definitely high on her wish list. She didn&amp;#039;t want to let go of traditional design altogether, but she wanted it fresh, not dowdy. She was looking to preserve the prewar heritage of the building, but she wanted to live in a modern space. ED: What were your inspirations?  AR: For the architecture I went to Sir John Soane, who was the premier 19th-century English neoclassicist. For the fabric choices I looked to the work of the Callot sisters, who were important early French couturi\u00E8res. Using gold and silver lam\u00E9 for their dresses was one of their signatures. And for color and decorative motifs, I was inspired by a painter I&amp;#039;m obsessed with, Martin Johnson Heade. He was associated with the nature-loving Hudson River School and is invariably described as a &amp;quot;luminist&amp;quot; for his use of light.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Touch of Luxury.&amp;quot;   ED: Do you encourage your clients to search for these kinds of inspirations?  AR: Absolutely. If you have a favorite painter or decorative style or fashion designer, chances are there are things you can pull out of their work.  ED: Tell us about the materials.  AR: The fabrics are all incredibly luxurious. Most of the upholstery is silk velvet. The custom carpets are silk. The curtains are silk. And there are a lot of metallic and crystal details that relate to those haute couture dresses. We even used fabric on some of the walls. ED: But silk is a pretty high-maintenance material, isn&amp;#039;t it?  AR: Yes, you have to be careful with it. But for some people its beauty and sheen are worth the extra effort. By the way, we used very little pattern in the fabrics. That&amp;#039;s another way to update the traditional. We have plenty of floral decorative flourishes, but they&amp;#039;re in places like the iron folding doors and chandeliers, not primarily in the textiles. ED: What about the architecture?  AR: One way to create architectural interest is with moldings. If you keep them simple and use the same molding around the ceilings and floors and doors, you give the room an outline, an almost Asian look, but modern. Soane did that. He used delicate moldings not only for decorative purposes but to emphasize the architectural forms, which has the effect of expanding a sense of space. ED: Do you find people are afraid of color?  AR: I do, but they shouldn&amp;#039;t be, at least of some colors. People think that painting everything white gives you a feeling of more space, but I think every room should have its own mood and its own color story. If you create a compelling experience in each space and move people from one well-tuned room to another, you actually wind up feeling that a home is much bigger than if it is all one color. You don&amp;#039;t have to use white to have something look light and bright. ED: What about the mix of furniture?  AR: Their former apartment was filled with fairly typical 19th-century antiques and antique reproductions, but Donna wanted something new and different. When we went shopping she was looking at many different periods and styles. She kept saying, &amp;quot;I like so many things,&amp;quot; so I helped her put some of them together. We have everything here from antiques and midcentury finds to custom pieces, which is part of what makes the place more modern. What The Pros Know \u2022 Designer Adam Rolston uses fabric and grass cloth alongside painted wall surfaces to provide textural variety and emphasize architectural detailing. \u2022 Rolston incorporated the same restrained trim profile throughout the apartment, from baseboards and crown molding to casings. &amp;quot;This has the effect of modernizing the architecture by making it seem less decorative and more delineated,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;like an outline in modern art.&amp;quot; \u2022 &amp;quot;The easiest colors to live with are light colors that have been grayed down or &amp;#039;muddied.&amp;#039; They have many of the same calming properties as neutrals,&amp;quot; says Rolston. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Touch of Luxury.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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