Zak+Fox’s Zak Profera Takes Us Inside His Chelsea Condo

“I have this obsession with faces,” he explains, pointing to a pair of 19th-century Japanese earthenware sculptures of fire gods mounted to the mantelpiece. “If you look around, there’s a lot of people, animals, and figures.” No surprise then he loves to entertain, frequently inviting friends to sink into his custom wraparound dining banquette for languorous dinners while he holds court in a prized Faye Toogood chair. All around, his own designs take center stage—from the bathroom’s Hedera wallpaper to the bedroom’s Ruudukko rug to the Mori stripe that wraps the living room, which is anchored by a working wood-burning fireplace and offers intimate Rear Window views into neighbors’ homes.

Profera came to New York City and the design profession by chance, though looking back, he says, it all felt preordained. At 18, he left his native Los Angeles to study conceptual art in San Francisco. After dropping out of college and moving east, a friend in the rug industry introduced him to what Profera calls the “medieval” romance of textile design. When a brief copy writing stint ended, he decided to try his hand at creating fabrics. “I learned by suffering through it,” Profera confides of that formative period in 2012, when he launched his company, building a reputation for his earthy palettes and globally inspired motifs. Now supported by a team of employees, he debuts three to four collections every year, including, most recently, his third outdoor line, and, next year, a major collaboration that promises to depart from his signature mediums. “We’re trying to lean into things that we haven’t done,” he says with a smile. “Why repeat?”

Jamb chairs in Zak+Fox’s Deluge linen face off in the living area.

California, he insists, is still “in my blood,” an influence evident in his sunny bedroom, whose wool-sateen curtains, trimmed in grosgrain, were inspired by LA’s Sunset Tower Hotel. Only here they frame cinematic city vistas for this consummate New Yorker. It’s Profera’s favorite spot in the home, where he’ll often curl up in a vintage Danish armchair with a cup of coffee and snuggles from Kuma—all against a backdrop of his Rapscallion stripes. Reflecting on this morning routine, he notes, “nothing makes me happier.”