00:00I think my best advice to someone designing their own space is think about how you want to live your life.
00:07What kind of kitchen do you want to have?
00:10Where do you want to drink coffee?
00:12Do you want to have six people for dinner? Do you want to have 16 people for dinner?
00:16How do you want to have drinks with your friends?
00:19Ask yourself all these questions that we ask our clients.
00:23I'm doing for myself exactly what I try to do for my clients.
00:26Give myself a home that's right for me, just like I'm trying to help my clients create a home that's right for them.
00:34I'm Robert Stillen. I'm an AD100 designer based in New York, and I'm going to take you behind the design of my new loft in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
00:43I found out about this loft and this building about eight years ago.
00:47I had a close friend of mine who was living in Red Hook, and he and a bunch of his friends were talking about this amazing new industrial loft building on the waterfront.
00:56And it was exciting, and I was intrigued.
00:58I had been living at that point in Soho for over 10 or 12 years in the same apartment, which was beautiful.
01:05But I was looking for a bigger space, and I wanted to live more graciously.
01:10I wanted to have light. I wanted to have space.
01:13The minute I came to this building, I was like, I think I'm going to live here.
01:18So this building is called the New York Dock Building.
01:20It was built in the early 1900s as a warehouse for things coming and going on the ships that still continue to come and go in front of this apartment in this beautiful shipyard.
01:34And over the course of time, it ended up being an empty, abandoned building.
01:44This is the space, more or less, the way that I bought it.
01:47It was completely raw industrial space, which was great for me because I wanted it to be as authentically a loft as I possibly could do.
01:57I really wanted this room that we're sitting in right now to feel like a loft.
02:02I was much happier to expose all the heating and air conditioning than build a soffit out of drywall to hide it.
02:08I kept all the columns. We didn't touch them.
02:11If they had graffiti on it, we left them. If they had paint marks on it, we left it.
02:14There's all this history here, and I think that that's important in design and the history and the age of things.
02:22You're sitting in a chair that's 60 years old, and you're sitting on a rug that's 90 years old.
02:27It's not perfect. It has age in it. It has the history of other people who lived on it.
02:32And all these things do, and that makes a difference. It's soulful.
02:36Yeah, this place is kind of new in the sense that it's all renovated, but all the things and the layers make you feel comfortable.
02:43They make you feel at home. They give you a sense of history and a connection to something.
02:54When I was working with my architect, Mark Geddes, to sort of come up with a plan for this apartment,
02:59I really wanted to keep the loft space on the water side.
03:03So this is the layout of this apartment.
03:06Over here is New York Harbor. On this side is all of Brooklyn.
03:09You get sunrises on the bedroom side. You get sunsets on the loft side.
03:16And on the water side, you have these expansive 180-degree views.
03:21You're overlooking the entire New York Harbor.
03:24We have the shipyards here, the Statue of Liberty, Governor's Island, all the way from the shipyards of New Jersey,
03:30Lower Manhattan, the Financial District, and you can see the Chrysler Building.
03:34You can see the Brooklyn Bridge.
03:35This is the primary suite here.
03:39So it has a very, very, very large, gracious bedroom area that has a whole seating area in it.
03:46Very large primary closet.
03:48And then the primary bathroom also is a room with a steam shower and a tub, and it has furniture in it.
03:55The connection between the west side and the east side doesn't have any natural daylight,
04:00so I really wanted to have these portholes so you could have light in there during the day
04:03and still be able to create privacy.
04:06And I really wanted to live in a loft.
04:08So I decided to keep the western exposure, which overlooks all of New York Harbor,
04:14as my living space in one gigantic loft space that's sort of kitchen, dining, and living.
04:20So this is the loft area of my apartment.
04:23This space is like 1,800 square feet, and it's a big, big, big volume.
04:28And I know probably to a lot of people that's like a daunting idea.
04:31People are like, how did you do that?
04:33How did you make this feel so cozy and so comfortable and so natural?
04:37And one of the things is that you invisibly divide the space up into the spaces that you're going to have.
04:43And so there's the kitchen, there's the breakfast, loungy kind of area,
04:47there's the dining space and the living space, and you almost pretend like there are walls between it.
04:52Everything is set up to be comfortable for one person to live here, but also it's flexible.
04:56If I have like one or two people over for lunch or coffee, I'll sit here.
05:00If I want to have like a drink with someone, I might sit here.
05:03It could be a one-on-one or it could have like 10 or 15 people over there.
05:06There isn't one chair or seating surface in this apartment that's not comfortable.
05:11I'm still a huge proponent of shopping and seeing things in person and trying them out.
05:16And I'm often baffled today when there's so much consumption online of like things for the home,
05:22and I don't know how people do it.
05:23Things are not always the way they look and things are not always the size they said they were.
05:28Like I can't say to a client they're comfortable unless I sat on them.
05:31And I don't want the responsibility of endorsing them if I didn't sit on them.
05:34Every single piece of furniture in here, I try it out.
05:37I'm a hunter and a gatherer, so I have a tendency to like collect lots of things.
05:42And I learned at an early point in this business,
05:45and also because I was attracted to like antiques and vintage and all that,
05:48that like if you see something today and you really like it and it's unusual, you have to buy it.
05:53You're not going to find it in six months when you want it.
05:56So that creates this, you know, need to have like a shop or a gallery
06:03and also to create an inventory for all these things so they're available when you want them.
06:08So the kitchen is a totally functional kitchen.
06:11I wanted to have enough of a kitchen to sort of like have the things that I care about.
06:15Like I really do like a big island and I like to be able to cook for my son and his wife.
06:21It's not so much about like I have to have a certain range.
06:24We use Wolf a lot.
06:26I have a big farmhouse sink from Waterworks.
06:29I also was lucky enough because I do have this big gracious space
06:33to have a scullery, butler's pantry sort of behind it
06:37that has everything that this kitchen doesn't have.
06:40I have an extra refrigerator.
06:42I have an ice maker.
06:43I have lots of extra storage.
06:45And I like to have things in sight in terms of like the cooking things
06:49because it's just easy to get them.
06:51And I like to have the things around that are usable and functional.
06:55And also I think the layering makes things cozier
06:59and just has a more like organic feeling to it.
07:02Too organized and too perfect is, it's not chill.
07:07You know, anywhere in the apartment that you might have a drink,
07:09there might be like a stack of those plates somewhere around there
07:10that you can just take them and, you know, use them for drinks.
07:14I don't have an issue at all about getting a ring on a table,
07:17but I like to have coasters.
07:19And I don't use like coaster coasters.
07:21I like to use like cool little vintage plates or they can even be new.
07:25I have like a whole bunch of different ones
07:27and I like to like serve a drink on a coaster.
07:30So this is my bedroom.
07:33I have Brooklyn in front of me.
07:35I feel engaged, but I also feel sort of,
07:37Red Hook is super peaceful and quiet at the same time.
07:40And the sun comes up and there are these beautiful shadows
07:44on the wall, on top of the art.
07:46It's kind of on the big side,
07:48which is why I wanted to move into this apartment.
07:51I really wanted to live in like a more gracious way.
07:53So I've had some parties here
07:55and like people love to come into this room and hang out.
07:58And if I have 50 people over here for cocktails,
08:00people wind over into this room
08:02and my bathroom is really quite large
08:04and has this furniture in it.
08:05It feels good to sort of like share my life with other people.
08:09I have never personally had a bathroom that was quite this large.
08:12It's an extension of my room.
08:14It's an extension of my life.
08:16And I like to take time getting ready.
08:18And I sit in that bathroom in one of those chairs a lot.
08:21I really love this room
08:23because I'm surrounded with so many things
08:27that are so meaningful for me
08:29and that I've collected over the years,
08:31some 20, 30 years ago,
08:32some pieces that I just found in the past year
08:35or even a week or two ago.
08:37This chair, which is designed by the Campana brothers,
08:40who I've known for a long, long time,
08:42I really enjoy what they do.
08:44Their work has like a sense of humor
08:46and it's functional and it's beautiful
08:48and it's unusual and unexpected.
08:50This chair came up for auction
08:52and it sort of just worked out that I was able to get it.
08:55And I'm happy to have it here for those reasons,
08:58in addition to the fact that it is like an attention getter
09:00and people, they're so curious about it
09:02and it's actually super comfortable.
09:04And I'm a big believer in design is great,
09:06but if it doesn't function, if it doesn't work,
09:08it doesn't really make any sense to me.
09:10I'm connected to everything that I have in this apartment.
09:13I think I have 300 or 400 works of art in this apartment.
09:16I have personally purchased every single one of them.
09:19Every single one has a story behind it.
09:21There's a lot of relationships with artists,
09:24with dealers, auction houses,
09:26all the sort of different people that make up the art community
09:30and the design community are all woven into the history
09:35that is in all these pieces.
09:37And I've been doing this business for 30 years
09:39and top of my career and all that sort of stuff.
09:41But there's also all these other people,
09:43you know, designers and dealers and gallerists
09:45and those people that they were starting out
09:47when I started out and we were all like,
09:49we're nobody and trying to make our way in the world.
09:51And to have all that history and experience
09:53of all those people, I mean, it's all tied to all these things.
09:55It's just super meaningful for me
09:56to live surrounded by all those things.
10:01I have no academic education in this business.
10:03I didn't go to design school.
10:05I didn't go to architecture school.
10:07I didn't go to landscape architecture school.
10:09I didn't go to construction school.
10:11I didn't go to any of it.
10:13I think it's really important to trust your feelings
10:15and talk to people that you know in your life
10:17that you respect their opinion about that thing.
10:20Talk to people who know about design and furniture and art
10:23and all that and see what they say
10:24and then see how it resonates with you.
10:26Get the best advice you can get.
10:28But also, I think mostly trust your instincts.
10:31If you love it and it's functional,
10:33it's going to work out.
10:35You have to pay attention to the needs
10:37and the restrictions and all that
10:39that you have in whatever your space is.
10:41But if you buy things that you love
10:43and you buy things that have purpose
10:45and they have function,
10:47if you buy a chair and it's comfortable
10:49and it's going to be your dining chair
10:51and you sit in it and you feel like
10:52I could see myself sitting in it
10:54and you pick a table and you do the same thing
10:56and you do that for everything,
10:58it's going to work out.
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