news
by lola ogunnaike
photography by ori harpaz
styled b dorcia kelley
When actor and singer Patina Miller and her husband, venture capitalist David Mars, were hunting for new digs, she had just two exigencies top of mind. “I need tons of light, and I need levels,” the Tony and Grammy Award winner recalls thinking as they kicked off a near yearlong search. Though their loft in the heart of Chelsea, Manhattan, had long been a refuge for the couple and their daughter, Emerson Harper, they were eager for more space—preferably a multi-floored expanse and brighter days ahead, literally and figuratively. Proximity to a park was also high on their wish list, says Miller, a star of the 1990s-era drama Power Book III: Raising Kanan on Starz (whose fifth season premiers June 12).
Miller and Mars scoured lower Manhattan and Brooklyn for a brownstone that would meet their needs, but it wasn’t until they discovered a gem nestled on a quiet Upper West Side block that they knew they’d found the one. “It was so spacious,” the actor says, still marveling. The home’s original crown moldings, splendid archways, and grand, hand-carved staircase from the late 1800s sealed the deal. “I was immediately sucked in.”
The couple turned to Josh Evan Goldfarb and Michael Edward Moirano, of the architecture and interior design firm Evan Edward, to help them semi-renovate and decorate their new home. They’d happily worked with the duo on the outfitting of their Chelsea apartment, and over the years had developed a shorthand that made teaming up again an easy decision.
“High-impact minimalism” is the term Goldfarb animatedly employs to describe Mars and Miller’s design sensibility. To that end, a series of smaller rooms were combined to create a sprawling, sun-suffused primary suite, complete with a boudoir made for red-carpet-readying glam sessions, a soak tub so large it had to be hoisted in by crane, and a writing alcove showcasing “the greatest desk you’ll ever see in your entire life,” Mars says of his wife’s crescent-shaped Mezzaluna table by Leon Rosen for the Pace Collection.
“I wanted it to be larger than life,” Miller says of the couple’s personal space. “I wanted a place that I could escape to.” Miller and Mars also wanted their suite to feel like a chic Parisian apartment. Paris is “where we would be if we weren’t in New York,” says Mars. Mission, perhaps, a little too accomplished. “We go to these hotels here in New York City that are beautiful and renowned, and we sit there and we’re like, ‘Why are we here?’ We have a better room in our house, as crazy as that sounds.”
Goldfarb says the couple resisted the impulse to toss aside all furniture pieces from their previous flat and start entirely anew. A 1950s Sputnik chandelier survived the move, as did the pair of teal curved RH sofas now centered in the parlor. When Goldfarb and Moirano presented the idea of a wall installation of vintage boom boxes, it was an immediate “yes” for Mars, a lifelong hip-hop enthusiast. Miller, however, was adamantly opposed. In fact, “Absolutely not,” was her initial reaction, that is until all 26 of the portable radios were mounted. “I remember seeing them and thinking, They were right, this is insane! And now it’s our music room.”
Music has always been a mainstay in their homes, where you’re as likely to hear Leonard Bernstein standards as you are Notorious B.I.G. rhymes. In Mars’s office, near his own impressive executive desk (a Vladimir Kagan), hangs a mixed media artwork depicting legendary MCs like Queen Latifah, Slick Rick, Rakim, and Nas (a business partner of Mars’s). It is his Mount Rushmore of rap, a “hip-hop royal family,” he says of the piece he created with his brother, the pop artist Robert Mars.
All involved in the renovation were committed to balancing “beauty with functionality,” Mars says, pointing to standout pieces like the Santambrogio & De Berti mirror that greets visitors in the foyer, and the custom dining table for 12 by Fong Construction Corp., complete with a marble lazy Susan.
Lighting fixtures that pack a visual punch are another design through line, says Moirano. A ribbonlike Gaetano Sciolari pendant in the entry hall, an A-N-D Iris pendant resembling a giant orb in the breakfast room, a 1960s G.C.M.E. ceiling light in Mars’s office, and a conical Carlos Nason “Birillo” floor lamp in the family room—as well as that vintage Sputnik chandelier now hanging in the parlor—are but a few of the home’s noteworthy luminaires.
“We love statement lighting,” says Goldfarb before waxing rhapsodic about a bespoke Murano glass showstopper made of more than 100 handblown barbell-shaped components that hangs over the dining room table. It was inspired by a vintage model seen at auction. “We really pumped it up,” he continues. “And I love that it’s so big.”
Even surrounded by so many statement pieces, Miller was clear that she wanted her home to feel less like a design museum and more like a “tranquil” cocoon, hence the bleached-walnut Versailles parquet floors and shades of warm sienna, blush, and aubergine that abound. “I’ve been in situations where you walk into a place and it’s too stuffy and you feel like, oh, I don’t belong here,” she says. “I want anyone who comes into our home to feel like they are welcome, that they belong.”
This story appears in the May issue.