“History is fresh! Place that on a T-shirt!”
Michael Tomei was beaming when he logged on for our job interview from his condominium in New York Metropolis. His genius for infusing modern day interiors with furnishings with loaded patina is obvious in his meticulously-designed, 2,100-square-foot, two-bedroom loft that he shares with his husband or wife, Peter, and a rescue pet named Huxley.
Intestine renovating the area in a century-old warehouse building in Manhattan’s NoHo district signaled a significant gear-shift for Tomei, who used to conceptualize store shows and style demonstrates for makes like Calvin Klein, Balenciaga, and Lanvin. Opening Michael Vincent Layout in 2019 permitted him to dedicate his vitality to rescuing aged structures and time-worn home furnishings, and—not to mention—binge-look at BBC period films for inspiration. “If they have a powdered encounter and a wig on, or if the gentlemen are prettier than ladies, I’m in,” he jokes.
Tomei’s obsession for curiosities from a bygone period is tempered with an attentiveness to modern concerns—including how to tastefully add more closet room. Each and every nook in the loft displays his intuitive aptitude for seamless juxtapositions concerning outdated and new objects: In the dining area, a heirloom mahogany desk from the 1920s is flanked by Harry Bertoia’s wire chairs. His grandmother’s chinoiserie cupboard shares the same area as a Jean Prouvé lamp and a pair of handsome bean-shaped sofas from Studio Walrus. Just one exception is the 1990s minimalist reverie in the major lavatory. “It’s my John Pawson second,” Tomei suggests. “It reminds me of the Calvin Klein retail store he intended on Madison Avenue in the nineties.”
Getting a blank canvas to do the job with was liberating, Tomei states. “Moving from a conservative co-op building into this loft was a breath of fresh new air in phrases of allowing and limitation procedure,” he suggests. “In my final co-op it took eight months just to get the allow to begin my development. In this new condominium I shut on a Friday and commenced demolition on Saturday!”
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Working on the condominium also healed Tomei of the itch to frequently redecorate, as he did with each individual style cycle in his former vocation. “It’s variety of monumental for me,” he explains. “It’s the first space that I have made for myself that I’m fully articles with.” His property doubles as a studio and dwelling showroom for possible consumers to expertise his layout sensibility in the flesh.
The expertise of coming up with an entire space emboldened Tomei to consider on rescuing unloved households in Very long Island. He devoted substantially of the pandemic 12 months to renovating many attributes in Bellport, New York, like an previous captain’s household from the 1870s, an 1840s cottage, and a midcentury ranch. “Compared to a new build, restoring anything requires a great deal far more treatment, exertion and investigate, but I’m all about it,” he says.
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