Yellow House Architects

Elizabeth Graziolo, the founder and principal of Manhattan- and Miami-based Yellow House Architects, found a somewhat haunting inspiration for this moody foyer and ethereal stair hall in the most recent Kips Bay Show House, on New York’s Riverside Drive. “Julia Marlowe, the first occupant of the house, was an actress in the early nineteen hundreds who experienced great joy and tragedy,” the designer explains. “We aspired to create a space befitting a modern-era Marlowe.” Known for projects combining classical architecture and avant-garde decor, Graziolo envisioned what she calls “an intriguing song and dance between light and dark, traditional and contemporary, heavy and airy.” The foyer walls were inset with undulating black glass from Atelier Barrois, complemented by a Hamza Kadiri carved-wood bench sourced through 1stDibs seller Les Ateliers Courbet. Other 1stDibs finds include J.M. Szymanski’s Table No. 15 and an ornate Nacho Carbonell chandelier of metal mesh entwined with welded-metal branches. The light from it draws visitors to the grand staircase, where flowing and organic plaster curves counterpoint traditional wainscoting, the whole illuminated by plaster sconces found on 1stDibs through Lerebours Antiques. “It was all about the concept of balancing the traditional background with the artistic aesthetic that we were superimposing onto the space,” Graziolo says.