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THE GLOBAL GUIDE TO MATERIAL COMFORTS • EDITED BY JASON CHEN
PROFILE
Amazing Grace
I
Designer Sandra Nunnerley doesn’t decorate (or live) by rules,
bringing a tasteful form-meets-function approach
to her Upper East Side apartment. BY WENDY GOODMAN
always say it’s like Versailles,” says Sandra Nunnerley, pointing to the 1940s
Maison Jansen Royal dining table in her living room. “Or at least the Versailles of my imagination, where the king could take his meals anywhere he
wanted.” The table’s blackened-steel, gold-plated legs rest on casters that allow Nunnerley to whisk it around the living room of her fifth-floor Carrère &
photographs by
E M I LY A N D R E W S
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DRAMATIC ART PLAYS OFF HER
A New Zealand possum
throw (above) lies next
to a tan club chair with
lacquered cane backing
that Nunnerley created as
a prototype for a client.
Against the window is the
designer’s Jansen table. A
pair of antique boomerangs
(right) a college-age
Nunnerley purchased
in Sydney; at the end of
the hall, an oil portrait of
Nunnerley by American
artists McDermott &
McGough. Previous page:
Nunnerley sits on a JeanMichel Frank dining chair;
behind her hangs Richard
Pettibone’s installation
Brancusi’s Dealer.
Hastings townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side. She found it in
Paris seven years ago, while she was shopping for a client, and realized
that the foldable rolling table would eliminate the need for a separate
dining room—for dinner parties, Nunnerley moves it to the center of
the room to accommodate up to ten guests. When not dressed for dinner, it takes its place in front of the living room window, topped with
assembled objects, such as a pair of tiny red embroidered satin Chinese
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“SHADOW COLORS,”
GRAYS AND BEIGES THAT CHANGE
WITH DAYLIGHT.
shoes (small enough for bound feet) that Nunnerley found in Beijing
years ago. The chic but functional table encapsulates the New Zealand–born designer’s ethos—an eye toward beauty and provenance
that remains firmly grounded in practicality. Having studied architecture in Sydney and art history in London and Paris, and worked at the
Marlborough Gallery in New York before opening her firm in 1986,
Nunnerley has brought her background to projects as varied as Park
Avenue apartments and Bahamas beachfront retreats; nowhere is it
more evident than in her own home. A large-scale painting by Richard
Serra hangs dramatically against a corner wall; in another corner is a
painted sculpture by Japanese artist Kaz Oshiro. The works provide
vivid contrast to the soothing palette of the room, the off-beiges and
pearlized grays Nunnerley calls “shadow colors,” which she prefers for
the way they change with the light of the day.
The remarkable light that the building gets was one of the apartment’s principal draws. Nunnerley had planned to live downtown,
where she first started her life in New York City in 1984, but fate
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NUNNERLEY’S GUIDING MANTRA:
“STAY SMALL, STAY UNIQUE
Clockwise from left: An ink
drawing by contemporary
Chinese artist Liu Dan
hangs over Nunnerley’s
custom linen sofa (one
she designed to fit neatly
into the niche in the wall).
Two midcentury doll
photographs by Morton
Bartlett hang over a Louis
XIV table Nunnerley
purchased at auction from
Sotheby’s and stripped
of its gilding. Nunnerley
stands in front of Richard
Serra’s My Curves Are Not
Mad (1987) and next to
a Senufo guardian bird
figure in carved wood (ca.
1920) from the Ivory Coast.
AND STAY HIGH-END.
THAT IS WHERE YOU WANT TO BE.”
intervened when a broker told her that two apartments had come on
the market in one of the rare Carrère & Hastings townhouses uptown.
A real-estate-savvy New Yorker, she snatched them up and wasted no
time renovating, creating a two-bedroom floor-through, the second
bedroom doubling as a study when friends aren’t battening down.
The ease with which Nunnerley hosts and entertains reflects the attitude with which she collects and decorates. “Not everything has to be
expensive,” Nunnerley insists, as one eyes a regal Murano glass lamp
mixed with “lots of New Zealand things,” including a pair of antique
Maori hand weapons made of jade and whale bone. Her furniture is a
mix of prized pieces such as a Jacques Adnet armchair intermingled
with chairs by Jean-Michel Frank and a large banquette of her own
design. Near the entrance of her apartment, a pair of photographs by
Morton Bartlett of his famous plaster dolls hangs over a Louis XIV
beech table. It’s the interplay between high and low, light and dark,
modern and traditional that fascinates Nunnerley.
Having had what she calls “a very unusual New Zealand childhood,” with a journalist mother who took her to “every play, concert
or ballet that came to town,” Nunnerley began working at the Marlborough Gallery after her arrival in New York; she met art legends Leo
Castelli and Holly Solomon, who became mentors. Since opening her
own studio nearly 30 years ago, Nunnerley has enjoyed the attention
that comes with being an established designer among the New York
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cocktail party set, but she has also remained steadfast in her
convictions, refusing to create a “signature look” or expand her name
into larger branding schemes (one exception could be made for her
monograph, Interiors: Sandra Nunnerley, published by powerHouse
Books last year). The person who gave her the confidence to stick to
what she believes in was the late decorating great and former Vogue
fashion editor Chessy Rayner. “She said, ‘Stay small, stay unique and
stay high-end. You’re going to have to reinvent the wheel for each project, but I think that is where you want to be.’ ”
Listening to her trusted mentor proved farsighted. “The upside,”
Nunnerley says, lowering her voice to a whisper, “is that when the
downturn came, we were so busy we didn’t know what to do.” ♦