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"View Slideshow\n\nDesigners Illya Hendrix and Thomas Allardyce get to Paris as often as they can\u2014to shop for clients, to visit friends and sources or simply to relax and enjoy themselves. &amp;quot;We&amp;#39;ve been fortunate enough to spend time in some of the most beautiful spaces in the city,&amp;quot; says Allardyce. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#39;t tell you how great an effect it&amp;#39;s had on us to see how people there live\u2014really live\u2014with their antiques.&amp;quot;\n\nIt&amp;#39;s a lesson he and Hendrix must inculcate in some clients, who may adore all of their new chairs, tables, sofas, rugs and beds without being fully certain that they&amp;#39;re allowed to use them. Yes, the designers assure them: Go ahead, it&amp;#39;s perfectly fine to sit on that 18th-century fauteuil we&amp;#39;ve brought back for you, or to toss the day&amp;#39;s mail atop that R\u00E9gence ormolu-mounted and brass-inlaid commode. That&amp;#39;s what they&amp;#39;re there for, after all.\n\nIn keeping with Neoclassicism&amp;#39;s fundamental tenet of harmony, no one piece is supposed to shine above the others.\n\nBut it wasn&amp;#39;t the case with a pair of clients from Chicago, a couple who cite Paris as one of their favorite cities in the world, and whose art collection, dominated by Impressionist works (including paintings by Renoir and Monet), bespeaks a natural affinity for the genteel emblems of pre-20th-century Europe. Seeking a little more space than their Gold Coast apartment afforded, they looked at modern buildings, which might have allowed them to live in a sleek penthouse with breathtaking lake views. But these old souls &amp;quot;loved the fact that their current building was historic,&amp;quot; says Allardyce, &amp;quot;and also that they were on a lower floor\u2014so that when they looked out their windows, they saw foliage. When the apartment next door came up for sale, they grabbed it.&amp;quot;\n\nAnd so was born an ambitious project in which the Los Angeles designers, working with Palm Springs-based architect Thomas Jakway, turned two apartments into one, reconfiguring the newly acquired space and making it into a master suite encompassing a bedroom, a sitting room, dressing rooms, a bath and a gym. At the same time, Hendrix and Allardyce added interior details\u2014wallcoverings, panels, moldings and carved plaster reliefs\u2014to help form what Allardyce calls a Neoclassical vocabulary. &amp;quot;Neoclassicism is not actually one distinct style,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s an approach that reinterprets the classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, with a special emphasis on symmetry and restraint.&amp;quot;\n\nOnce this all-important vocabulary had been developed, it was time to start speaking in fluent, elegant sentences. To impart a noble character, Hendrix and Allardyce brought in scores of European furnishings from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In keeping with Neoclassicism&amp;#39;s fundamental tenet of harmony, no one piece is supposed to shine above the others; all have been chosen, regardless of their provenance, for their ability to work together and create a balanced whole.\n\nThe tone of restrained European grandeur is set in the entrance hall, a relatively small space that nevertheless manages to house two large giltwood mirrors from the 18th century, a circa 1790 Italian painted and parcel-gilt armchair, a Louis XVI giltwood bench and a pair of 19th-century French black-lacquered, bronze-dor\u00E9-mounted cabinets, among other pieces. More giltwood furnishings\u2014including a 17th-century octagonal Spanish mirror and a Louis XVI canap\u00E9\u2014are to be found in the living room, along with many other pieces from Italy, France and Sweden. In the dining room\u2014where wallcoverings and other fabrics cast a warm, golden glow, as they do in all these rooms\u2014a 19th-century, Louis XIV-style repouss\u00E9 mirror hangs above a painted and marble-topped sideboard.\n\nIf there&amp;#39;s one thing their Parisian travels have taught Hendrix and Allardyce, says the latter, it&amp;#39;s that people can, and do, live casually with fine things. They really do sit on those 18th-century chairs\u2014they&amp;#39;re not just museum pieces. In an apartment that rivals a small shop on the Carr\u00E9 des Antiquaires for its thoughtful selection of European antiques, it probably can&amp;#39;t be stressed enough; as it happens, these clients can&amp;#39;t help but interact with decorative history throughout their normal day. &amp;quot;That lesson underlies all of our work,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Everything we select is chosen not just for beauty but for comfort.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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