Felekşan Onar, an internationally known glass artist who was born and raised in Türkiye, lives in Istanbul with her husband, Hamdi Onar, but for many years, the couple also maintained a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Les Ateliers Courbet, one of New York City’s top fine-furnishings and art galleries, sells Felekşan’s limited-edition functional art, decorative objects, and lighting pieces, which are also available through the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gift shop.
Felekşan, who attended Cornell as an undergraduate and later went on to Harvard, had started out working in finance, but 20 years ago she decided to follow a passion ignited during her early teens and began educating herself in glassmaking. She got her first kiln in 2003 and in 2006 opened Fy-Shan, her own glass atelier in Istanbul.
Fast forward to the COVID era, when Felekşan and Hamdi began looking to upgrade to a new Stateside pied-à-terre, preferably one with a terrace. Fortuitously, a 1,700-square-foot two-bedroom duplex with a terrace and a postcard view of the Empire State Building became available in the same building they had been living in previously, where their adult daughters also now make their home. The Onars closed on the new digs in summer 2021.
In the foyer, a wall covered in leather tiles from Edelman serves as a backdrop for a made-to-order Christian Liaigre bench and a pair of Onar’s favorite sneakers rendered in glass.
For the living room, Anne Lewis Brewer designed custom shelves in walnut and ebonized oak to display art-glass pieces by homeowner Felekşan Onar, who also made the floor lamp. Furnishings include a Saint-Germain sofa from Poliform, a custom swivel chair in a Dedar velvet, and a sling chair by Gratz.
In the dining room, Neva chairs by Artisan surround an oval Driade table by Antonia Astori. Onar designed the ceiling fixtures.
Brewer designed a custom headboard for the primary bedroom, where a feature wall is covered in a Phillip Jeffries silk.
Designed by Marco Zanuso in 1951, a Lady chair from Cassina sits on a pale blue rug.
The terrace features a Richard Schutlz 1966 dining table from DWR and Jonas dining chairs from AllModern.
Furnishings on the terrace include a modular sofa by Skargaarden from the Danish Design Store, a concrete coffee table from CB2, a Havana chair from RH, and an accent stool from Marni Market.
After interviewing several decorators online, the Onars chose Anne Lewis Brewer, founding principal of Lewis Birks, to help tailor the space to their taste and needs. Brewer, a Kentucky native who has a degree in architecture from Washington University and was recommended by a mutual friend, started out in New York working for decorators including Tori Golub and Damon Liss. “I just loved everything about interiors,” Brewer recounts, “so I decided to go that route.” In 2017, she opened her own firm.
The Onars were not looking for a complete overhaul.“We did not want to knock down any walls,” Felekşan says, “although we did want to refinish the parquet floors and restore the kitchen cabinets,” the latter installed by the apartment’s previous owner. “Felekşan and Hamdi entertain frequently,” adds Brewer, “and definitely needed more storage. And, of course, places to display Felekşan’s glass.”
Furniture arrangements came next, something that “Anne was very good with,” says Felekşan, who oversaw most of the couple’s aesthetic decisions. “She came up with about six different solutions for the furniture,” including custom, new, and vintage pieces, although the Onars took the cautionary step of moving in with rented furniture to see how things would work. “I rented an L-shaped sofa to see if I would actually like it,” Felekşan says, “and I did.” She also cut out a paper oval the same size as the proposed dining table to make sure it would fit as well as it did in her mind’s eye.
Perhaps Brewer’s most creative contribution is the full-wall display and storage cabinet in the living room, which includes sliding doors that hide the TV. Brewer also painted the living room ceiling in a high-gloss finish that perfectly complements Felekşan’s glasswork, some of which was made specifically for the apartment, such as dining room ceiling fixtures that pay homage to ancient Middle Eastern oil lamps. Brewer muses, “It’s not often a decorator is able to say to a client, ‘I need two ceiling fixtures,’ and give her the size and colors and have them turn out exactly right!”
