Style Maven In Julie Macklowe’s Fifth Avenue living room, two Florian Maier-Aichen photographs hang above a Philippe Starck M.I.S.S. sofa from Cassina. The Calder coffee table by Minotti is from DDC; the round Maxalto side table is from B&B Italia. The rug is from Stephanie Odegard Collection. Macklowe (right) stands next to a Saarinen side table from Knoll.
In 2005, when Julie Macklowe was working as a hedge-fund manager, she learned from a colleague at a conference in California that he was moving out of his Manhattan apartment. Just one quick phone call later, her husband, Billy, had put a bid on it. “You don’t even want to see it,” he told her. “It has to be gutted, but it’s a full floor on Fifth Avenue. That’s all you need to know.” She trusted him. After all, Billy knows real estate: He founded and runs the William Macklowe Company, one of New York’s most successful real estate development and investment firms. Her response? “Okay, sure.”
Luckily, Julie, who has since left the world of finance to create the beauty product line VBeauté, agrees with her husband on most things, including the design of their living spaces. Despite the “gilded gold glitzy” style of their new 20th-floor apartment and its awkward five-bedroom layout, they loved the light and the views of Central Park over the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And both wanted the apartment to be “super modern,” she says, in keeping with the building’s provenance. The controversial 1980 structure, with its postmodern Philip Johnson façade, is decidedly out of step with its older, more ornate neighbors, many of which tried to block the building’s original construction.
Light Entertaining In the dining room, a Cellula chandelier studded with Swarovski crystals hangs above a custom table with a burl veneer top by Eric Alch. The leather Cab chairs are from Cassina; the puppy dog vase is by Jeff Koons. On a wall of the living room (right), a Ralph Humphrey painting hangs between two Utrecht armchairs—a Gerrit Rietveld design from 1935—covered in Holland & Sherry’s Kensington felt in lime.
“We took it slab to slab,” Julie says of the renovation, which exposed the concrete walls from Fifth to Madison. The floors had been layered and the ceilings dropped with each previous tenant, so as the Macklowes peeled back the years, they gained about six inches of room height, though “we’re not usually focused on ceiling height,” Julie admits. “Billy and I are not the tallest people in the world.”
Even so, the newfound space created an airiness they both cherish, part of their intended “anti–Park Avenue apartment” style. “I have never understood Park Avenue apartments,” Julie says. “They are grand and beautiful, but I find them a bit dark.” Here, the light and views serve as both the foundation and the finish of the space, conceived by the couple with their designer, Eric Alch. “He’s a trained architect, so he understands space and light. He did a great job and was super easy to work with.”
Oasis Of Comfort The den includes a linen-covered sofa from Design Within Reach, pillows from Lucien Pellat Finet, a Loro Piana throw, and a classic Arco floor lamp from Cassina. The Oxides area rug from Patterson, Flynn & Martin is bound with mocha leather. Chic And Sleek An aluminum silo in the entryway (top right) disguises the elevator column and also contains a powder room and wet bar. In the kitchen (bottom right), Poliform cabinets and a wall of Viking ovens form a backdrop for a Saarinen Tulip table from Knoll, Arne Jacobsen chairs from Fritz Hansen, and an Artemide pendant from Luceplan.
The interiors of the 4,800-square-foot apartment, which the Macklowes now share with their six-year-old daughter, Zoe, were intentionally left open and simple. “We are not molding people,” says Julie, who prefers her walls to meet the ceilings without embellishment. “I was super minimal even before I met Billy. That might be one of the reasons he married me.” The most obvious example of breaking with “the other Avenue” is the “anti-foyer,” an Orgasmatron-sized circular aluminum drum designed to hide the elevator column in the entryway. The metal-clad silo also contains a wet bar on one side and a powder room on the other, the idea being to keep the space as open as possible by not chopping the foyer into individual rooms. “It’s very Austin Powers,” Julie says.
And then there’s the super-modern artwork. In the living room, two Florian Maier-Aichen photographs above the sofa reflect the lime-green felt upholstery on a pair of armchairs that flank a minimal Ralph Humphrey painting across the room. A black-and-white Bernd and Hilla Becher photograph and a pigment print by Christian Marclay hang beside the aluminum-framed windows. There’s a ceramic puppy dog vase by Jeff Koons in the dining room, and yes, the Macklowes fill it with flowers when they entertain. There’s work by Brice Marden and Douglas Gordon, and an Adam Fuss photograph in the master bedroom that sports blue and purple tones created by rabbit entrails. “I like his use of colors,” Julie says, noting that her mother-in-law, Linda Macklowe, is a preeminent art collector, “so we have a resident expert in the family.”
View To A Thrill An Eames lounge chair from Herman Miller sits beside the north-facing window of the master bedroom (left); the pink pillow is from Lucien Pellat Finet. A pair of Dezza armchairs from Poltrona Frau, reproductions of a 1965 Gio Ponti design, have a full-on western view of the park (right). The artwork is by Adam Fuss.
A masterpiece of another sort is the couple’s closet. “We share the closet, as shocking as that seems,” says Julie, whose name appears regularly on various best-dressed lists. “Billy gets one little section and I get the rest.” Every item is meticulously protected with cotton shoulder guards from the Container Store. Macklowe, who is frequently photographed wearing Zang Toi and Chanel, insists she really wears the same six daytime outfits in rotation and is more interested in divesting herself of former apparel acquisitions than investing in new ones. But the magnificent closet gives her away.
She and her husband also share office space, and as the CEO of VBeauté, she admits that her workplace’s “somewhat of a dress code” keeps her dressing a bit more formally these days. Her luxury skincare line, which was first sold at Bergdorf Goodman, is now more widely available at the Look boutiques of Duane Reade and Walgreens, and much like her home, it’s decidedly minimalist: She has removed all unnecessary “clutter” from her products, which are vegan as well as fragrance- and paraben-free. It makes sense for the self-described neat freak. Her apartment, Julie adds, allows her and Billy to “focus on the view instead of things we could own. That’s what minimalism is to us.” Especially when Central Park is just across the street.
