SARTORIAL FLAIR

Aged leather, faded rugs and iconic designs give this fashion executive’s New York home unique charisma

- JULIET BENNING

Having lived in London for five years, Joshua Schulman’s previous home of New York beckoned him back with a new job opportunity and the chance to reunite with his partner, now husband, Jim Conley. ‘Jim had been living in my old apartment, so with my return we decided to start looking for a home we could share together,’ says Joshua, who is a long-term fashion and retail executive while Jim works as a marketing executive at Twitter.

‘Like any hunt for property in Manhattan, we had our ups and downs, but as soon as we walked into this house we knew we had found the right one,’ Joshua says of their period townhouse near Gramercy Park, an area known for its brownstone properties and tree-lined streets. ‘The building had started life as a family home that had then been converted into several flats. But fortunately the previous owners had done a good job of reintegrating it into a single house.’

Enlisting the design eye of Cliff Fong, the owner of LA design firm Matt Blacke Inc and the showroom Galerie Half, a meandering and joyful collaboration ensued. ‘The three of us had so much fun hiking through the city scouring out thrift stores and flea markets,’ says Cliff. Having known the couple for decades and with many mutual friends, Cliff had an intuitive understanding of Joshua and Jim’s taste. This enabled him to create an interior that captures the personalities of the couple, although Joshua concedes that his own style has shifted somewhat since working with Cliff. ‘In the past, my aesthetic had been colder with more hard edges, but the house lent itself to a softer direction, mixing different period pieces, rugs, textiles and paints, which Cliff always has a strong opinion about.’