In matters of New York City real estate, bigger is, almost without a doubt, always better. So when a couple with two children scoped out a six-floor, 7,800-square-foot Chelsea townhouse with soaring ceilings, a double-height parlor and dining room, and a spacious layout that included his-and-hers offices, a guest apartment, and a home theater and gym, they were, needless to say, intrigued. It had a fascinating history too: Before it became a single-family home, the building was an artist’s refuge, a boarding house, and even a convent, owned by Sisters of St. Agnes, next door. The stained glass windows on the parlor level served as a reminder of its past life. They were practically sold. Well, he was. “I wasn’t so sure,” recalls his wife. “I was feeling a bit daunted by the size and scope of the house.” That’s when the couple called on Brittney Hart and Justin Capuco, cofounders of the New York–based design firm Husband Wife, hoping they could deliver a few tweaks—and a major vibe shift.
“It started off kind of surgical and it ended up becoming much more of gut renovation,” explains Capuco of the job, which, as they often do, snowballed fast. Despite its many amenities, the space was a bit of an architectural hodgepodge—medieval-ish stair railings; a mishmash of molding styles, and somehow dark, even with the large windows and high ceilings. Beneath it all, though, there were great bones. The designers just had to edit their way to them.
An early decision that guided the project was to leave one heavier element totally untouched: the rich mahogany floors, installed by the previous owner. “We decided to lean into it,” explains Capuco of the feature, which would serve as a grounding foil to the otherwise lighter, brighter interiors, giving the place a sense of gravitas, like the French modernist homes they looked to as reference points. Those floors would influence their redo of the dramatic staircase, a central artery visible throughout the home, which they clad in a similar dark wood, modernizing it with a slick glass banister that amplified sunlight in the townhouse interior. To keep things from going too cold, they added a sumptuous, matching wood railing.
