Jewel Box

Sumptuous textiles, bold patterns, and vintage treasures make designer Madina Visconti di Modrone's historic Milan apartment shine

- HANNAH MARTIN

Several years ago, jewelry designer Madina Visconti di Modrone was walking around Milan’s Cinque Vie neighborhood with her mother when they glimpsed a courtyard past an unassuming façade. “I would love to live in a palazzo like this one,” Visconti di Modrone recalls remarking. At mom’s urging, she asked the doorman if there were any units for sale in the building, a converted 17th-century convent. He grabbed a set of keys and took them for a look. “The apartment was completely destroyed,” she continues. “But I saw these super-high ceilings, the big windows—the rooms. And I could imagine it all in my head.”

The “it” of which she speaks is a diamond in the rough polished to perfection. “I wanted to really express myself,” Visconti di Modrone explains of the property, her first home purchase after years of renting. "So I really played. I had fun with it." Floors were restored using reclaimed boards, and a vacant hearth replaced with an antique fireplace. The elegantly timeworn walls, however, were left exactly as they were. "I wanted to preserve the feeling of the place," says Visconti di Modrone, who considered changing the original doors-she wasn't crazy about the bright blue glass-but eventually fell in love with them. And when she learned that she couldn't fit a soaking tub in the petite bathroom, she installed one in her bedroom, a decorating pivot fit for a 1920s starlet. "It's perfect. I take a bath every night."