A taxi ride home after a wedding proved to be a serendipitous event for Gil, when he found himself sharing a ride and talking architecture with the stylish, talented art consultant Will Kopelman who was considering renovating his classical, old-world, pre-war apartment to better suit his young family and busy life.

Collaborating closely with Will, GPSA reconfigured and renovated portions of the four-bedroom Park Avenue apartment, re-thinking the main family living spaces, and focusing the new layout around an expansive, light-filled kitchen, which now serves as the family’s main gathering place.

A custom banquette provides plenty of seating for breakfasts and dinners—and homework, art projects, and all of the other joys of family life—and there’s now plenty of storage for all of the accouterment that young families need today.

To maximize the apartment’s grand entry hall, we designed custom floor-to-ceiling steel and glass doors that allow for natural light and interconnectedness from one room to the next, while still creating a sense of acoustic privacy between spaces. The juxtaposition of steel doors against plaster walls and decorative moldings feels at once modern and traditional.

In the deep doorway leading into the living room, we added custom, built-in bookcases, designed specifically for Will’s collections.

New millwork was designed to preserve the pre-war character of the apartment, as though the newly configured spaces were always meant to be as open and inviting as they are now.

To read more about this apartment and collaboration, please click for the Architectural Digest feature here >

Credits
Interior Design by Will Kopelman
General Contracting by S. Donadic, Inc. and Nordic Custom Builders
All Photographs by Simon Upton
Styling by Michael Bargo