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Markham Roberts’s renovation of a Manhattan duplex shows how a historic apartment can become more comfortable without losing its past. The home occupies the 16th and 17th floors of a 1920s Rosario Candela building, and its design keeps the surviving architectural character in conversation with antiques, family pieces, saturated color, patterned textiles and hand-painted decoration.
The project, profiled by Architectural Digest in a March 20, 2025 feature by David Foxley with photography by Nelson Hancock, belongs to an unnamed couple. Its address, budget and renovation dates are not published. What is documented is a deliberate method: retain what gives the rooms identity, then add layers that make the apartment feel collected rather than newly manufactured.
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A duplex shaped by what survived
The apartment spans two floors in a Rosario Candela building, with skyline and river views that become part of the interior experience. Roberts and the owners did not approach the rooms as a blank shell. Instead, they treated the remaining architectural details as a framework for a more personal scheme.
“A lot of these apartments have been entirely stripped or redone, but this one still had all of its character,” Roberts says in the feature. That principle explains the renovation’s restraint. New work is highly decorative, but it is not trying to disguise the building’s age or replace every trace of its earlier life.
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Preservation before decoration
The entrance floor illustrates the negotiation between old and new. Its polished marble was original, yet the owners and designer found the surface too glossy for their taste. Roberts recalls joking that they would “put on sandpaper roller skates and skate around it because we all like beat-up things.” The remark captures the project’s preference for patina, wear and visual softness over showroom perfection.
Rather than treating historic material as untouchable or removing it wholesale, the team evaluated how each element supported the way the family wanted to live. That approach leaves room for interventions that are conspicuously contemporary in execution—painted motifs, new upholstery and custom lighting—while preserving the sense that the apartment has accumulated its character over time.
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A double-height hall in blue silk
The double-height entrance hall is wrapped in blue De Gournay silk printed with Japanese-inspired designs conceived by Roberts and painted by Roberto Mora. The treatment is immersive: the walls are not a neutral backdrop but the first major piece of art visitors encounter.
Using a silk wall covering in a tall hall could have produced a formal, museum-like effect. Here, the hand-painted imagery and the variation inherent in a crafted surface make the space feel inhabited. The design also introduces the apartment’s recurring dialogue between European architecture and Asian art, a conversation that continues in the sitting room and library.
A vestibule with a historical reference
The private elevator vestibule has a domed ceiling decorated with floral motifs inspired by an 18th-century Greek painted cabinet at Athens’s Benaki Museum. The source is historical, but the application is specific to this home: Roberts translated the reference into a custom ceiling rather than reproducing a complete period interior.
A circa-1910 German Jugendstil pendant lantern, credited to James Sansum, hangs in the entrance sequence. Its presence adds another chronological layer, allowing the hall to read as a collection of related discoveries instead of a single-period set.
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How the sitting room balances wood, lacquer and pattern
The sitting room relies on oak paneling as its architectural anchor. Against that warm, stable surface, the furnishings introduce contrasting finishes and motifs: a Japanese Showa lacquered table, an 18th-century Japanese Rinpa screen and a group of antique pieces upholstered in varied fabrics.
The upholstery is intentionally mixed. A French bergère is covered in a Jasper stripe, a sofa uses Kravet velvet and an armchair is finished in Lee Jofa floral fabric. The combination demonstrates a practical way to layer pattern: vary scale, texture and direction while keeping the room’s woodwork as a visual constant.
Why the room does not feel overfilled
Although the sitting room contains several strong objects, the palette is controlled by the oak and by the repetition of textile colors. The screen and lacquer table provide dark, reflective accents; the striped and floral upholstery breaks up the solidity of the paneling. This is accumulation with hierarchy, not a display in which every object competes equally.
The burgundy dining room turns a preference into architecture
The owners had long wanted a red room, so Roberts developed a dining room in burgundy flannel with a floral border. The choice is more nuanced than a bright painted red: flannel gives the walls a matte, tactile appearance, while the border supplies a clearly drawn perimeter.
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A striped banquette, wicker chairs and a pink Venetian glass ceiling light add separate patterns and materials. The room therefore works through contrast—soft wall fabric against woven seating, stripes against florals, and the colored glass fixture as a luminous focal point.
Using a dark color without losing light
Burgundy can make a dining room feel intimate rather than gloomy when reflective or pale accents are placed deliberately. In this room, the pink glass light and the varied upholstery keep the color from becoming a single heavy block. The result supports the owners’ “old-fashioned glamour” without turning the space into a period recreation.
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A library wrapped in fabric and modernist references
Printed cotton from Décors Barbares covers both the library walls and its drapery. Extending one textile across vertical surfaces and windows creates a cocooning effect and visually unifies the room’s openings.
The feature places an Austrian Secessionist vase and lamps attributed to Josef Hoffmann within this patterned setting. Their geometric modernism gives the floral or decorative cotton a sharper counterpoint. The room’s lesson is useful for any textile-heavy scheme: a historic or botanical print can accommodate modernist objects when the furniture silhouettes and materials provide enough structure.
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Bedroom in vine-pattern linen
The primary bedroom uses Jasper linen with a vine pattern on the walls and windows. Repeating the fabric at both locations softens the transition between enclosure and daylight, while the organic motif keeps the room connected to the botanical themes elsewhere in the apartment.
Study with a curtained canopy bed
In the study, a canopy bed is curtained in Holland & Sherry wool. The arrangement gives the room an architectural center and introduces privacy through fabric rather than permanent partitions. Wool also changes the acoustic and tactile character of the space, making the study feel more residential than office-like.
Custom painting is used where standard finishes would not suffice
Roberts’s collaboration with Roberto Mora is central to the project’s identity. Mora executed the Japanese-inspired entrance-hall designs and the floral motifs in the elevator vestibule, translating Roberts’s concepts into painted surfaces.
The primary bath also includes custom decorative work. These interventions matter because they connect separate rooms through authorship: the apartment does not depend solely on purchased wallpaper, furniture or fixtures. Its most memorable surfaces were designed for this specific architecture and cannot be reduced to a catalog selection.
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What custom motifs contribute
- Scale: Motifs can be sized to a double-height wall, a dome or a narrow transition space.
- Continuity: Colors and forms can echo antiques or fabrics used in adjoining rooms.
- Irregularity: Hand-painted work introduces variation that keeps a formal scheme from looking mechanically repeated.
- Place: References such as the Benaki Museum cabinet become part of the apartment’s story without turning the room into a replica.
Bathrooms and kitchen: practical rooms within the decorative scheme
Primary bath
The primary bath combines Calacatta turquoise marble accents with a Kohler sink and a Waterworks tub. The marble supplies a strong mineral color, while the fixtures keep the room legible as a working bathroom rather than a purely ornamental setting.
Kitchen
The kitchen is painted Benjamin Moore White Diamond and uses Waterworks hexagon mosaic flooring. The near-white paint gives the room a lighter visual field than the burgundy dining room or fabric-covered library, while the hexagon floor adds pattern at a durable, walkable surface.
This contrast is important to the apartment’s overall rhythm. Not every room is saturated or wrapped in print; quieter utility spaces provide visual relief so the richer rooms retain their impact.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The terrace extends the interior’s collected mood outdoors
Landscape designer Miranda Brooks is credited with the terrace plantings, which are paired with striped awnings. The awnings introduce a graphic textile element that relates to the apartment’s banquettes, curtains and upholstered furniture.
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Because the home has skyline and river views, the terrace is both a garden and a viewing platform. Planting softens the edge of the architecture without competing with the panorama, while the stripes give the outdoor space a recognizable pattern language.
What makes the makeover feel “sensitive”
The project’s sensitivity is not minimalism. It comes from editing the relationship between old elements and new ones. Five decisions explain the effect:
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- Character is treated as an asset. Surviving marble, paneling and the apartment’s proportions remain visible rather than being erased.
- Antiques carry family and historical references. Japanese screens, lacquer, a Jugendstil lantern and modernist objects give the rooms depth beyond a single decorating moment.
- Color is assigned by room. Burgundy defines the dining room, blue silk controls the entrance and White Diamond keeps the kitchen comparatively calm.
- Pattern is layered through different materials. Silk, flannel, printed cotton, linen, wool, stripes and florals each contribute a distinct texture or scale.
- Custom painting links the scheme to the architecture. Roberts and Mora created motifs for specific walls and ceilings instead of relying only on ready-made finishes.
The unnamed homeowner describes the atmosphere as “a Cole Porter feeling—this kind of old-fashioned glamour.” Looking through the rooms and toward the terrace, she says, “I feel like I’m standing in a palazzo in Venice.” Both comments point to the same achievement: the apartment feels theatrical, but the drama is built from accumulated objects, tactile surfaces and personal references rather than from a single grand gesture.
How to apply the approach in another home
1. Inventory what deserves to stay
List original floors, moldings, paneling, doors, hardware and unusual proportions before planning finishes. Decide which elements are genuinely unattractive, which are merely worn, and which provide irreplaceable character.
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An oak wall, a painted ceiling, a dominant fabric or a distinctive floor can establish the room’s baseline. Add furniture and accessories in response to that anchor instead of selecting every item independently.
3. Build a pattern hierarchy
Combine one large-scale pattern with smaller stripes, florals or geometrics. Change the texture as well as the print: a matte flannel, reflective glass, woven wicker and polished lacquer will read differently even when their colors overlap.
4. Reserve custom painting for focal surfaces
A hand-painted ceiling, vestibule or entrance wall can deliver more impact than applying bespoke decoration everywhere. Use the architecture to determine the motif’s scale and sightline.
5. Keep practical rooms visually related
Bathrooms and kitchens need durable, serviceable materials. They can still belong to the same story through repeated colors, metal finishes, geometric floor patterns or a shared transition color.
What the published feature does—and does not—establish
The feature identifies makers and vendors for many furnishings, textiles, lighting pieces, paint and fixtures. It does not establish that every named product is currently available, that specifications remain unchanged, or that any vendor offers an affiliate program. Readers seeking a similar look should verify present-day availability and dimensions directly with manufacturers or dealers.
The article also does not publish the apartment’s address, renovation budget, construction schedule or quantified performance data. Its value is observational: it documents the design decisions and the completed rooms, not an independent inspection or product test.
Bottom line
Markham Roberts’s 1920s penthouse makeover succeeds by adding richness without denying history. The duplex keeps its architectural memory, then layers in antiques, heirlooms, textiles, saturated color, custom painting and garden design. The result is glamorous but not pristine, decorative but not random—a model for renovating a historic interior through continuity, curation and carefully placed invention.
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