SIZED TO FIT

Designer Nannette Brown reimagines a new-build apartment with unexpected depth, character, and texture.

- Catherine Hong

Never underestimate the power of a niche. This is one lesson you learn upon exploring this coolly elegant Upper East Side residence with interior design and architecture by the firm of Nannette Brown. Take the vestibule, where a semicircular recessed seating area sheathed floor to ceiling in zellige tile offers a striking perch for changing shoes. Or the primary bedroom, where a cashmere-upholstered daybed built into an alcove serves as an inviting spot for lounging. And don't forget the wood-paneled library, where a snug little wall niche makes the perfect display shelf for a piece of sculpture. Everywhere you look, functional nooks and recesses abound.

"All space is valuable-especially so in New York City where one never wants to waste an inch," says Brown. But it wasn't simply the economics of scarcity that inspired her unique approach to the apartment's plethora of recessed areas. Located just off Park Avenue, the 4,000-square-foot apartment was "a blank slate," as she puts it, when she was brought on by the clients. Too blank, in her opinion. "As many of these new luxury buildings tend to be, the apartment was bereft of interior architecture," she says. "My goal was to un-white-box the apartment."