Living Etc 2015-10

HOMESetc
LIVING AREA
The twin black sofas were made to fit the
apartment. ‘The principal thing I do when
I start a job is think about whether I can get
all the furniture in,’ says Pol. ‘The first job
I ever did was on the 20th floor and I paid to
have the sofa carried up the stairs… Then it
wouldn’t fit through the door. Never again!’
GET THE LOOK The sofas are by BDDW.
The upcycled table was modelled on a family
heirloom. The silk rug was custom-made in
India. The photography on the wall is by, from
top, Alex Katz, Tom Sachs and Julian Schnabel.
‘Every good home should
have a skull in it.’
So says Pol Theis, chuckling. And if his apartment is anything to go by,
a human skeleton, several crucifixes and dismembered china dolls too.
‘I look at these pieces as art,’ he says. ‘All different, all authentic. No two
skulls are the same! Some people are disgusted, but I enjoy them.’
While some objects in Pol’s Midtown abode are ghoulish, others are
family heirlooms or finds he picked up on his travels: candlesticks from
Bhutan, Indian bracelets, a ‘ridiculous crown’ bought in Buenos Aires.
‘If someone said they’d like the same look for their home in six months,
I’d not be able to do it,’ says Pol. These pieces represent a lifetime of
collecting. ‘You can’t give a place personality just by walking into a shop
and buying a look,’ he says. ‘That’s not the way for me. I try to bring in
antiques, art and eclectic objects to prevent the space becoming sterile.’
You could certainly never accuse Pol’s home of looking sterile,
though. It boasts rich, masculine materials – concrete, steel, dark
walnut – and looks more to Europe than the US for inspiration. Pol is
from Luxembourg and was a corporate lawyer in Paris for eight years
before moving to New York in 2001 to become an interior designer. He
describes his apartment as ‘revisiting the European grandmother-style,
but with a contemporary twist!’ Think 150-year-old leopard skins on
the floor, oversized wing-back armchairs and beautiful period-style
panelling, lacquered in sexy black. Wow – that’s one feisty granny…
Pol’s grandma-goes-gothic style is a far cry from how the space
looked when he first saw it. Three years ago, the place was a dilapidated
industrial unit in a pre-war building in Manhattan’s Garment District,
but it had a vast terrace and knock-your-socks-off views. Pol immediately
knew it could make an astonishing home. ‘The views, the windows,
everything,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think twice. It’s pretty rare to have an
apartment across a full floor and with a huge, south-facing terrace too.
I”d never seen anything like this before – neither had the estate agent.’
Rather than make it open-plan and loft-like, Pol created a flowing
design arranged around an internal box, which he describes as the
‘engine’ of the apartment. ‘It contains all the vital elements for everyday
life: the bathrooms and kitchen,’ Pol explains. ‘And there’s a passageway
running around it, to open up the views and flood the space with light.’
The other key living areas are found at either end of the apartment,
with the bedrooms arranged along the east side. For greater versatility,
Pol designed five concealed pocket doors that can cut across the
flowing configuration. It means the guest bedroom can be connected
to the bathroom in the box, providing complete privacy, while the
library can be transformed into a spare room. ‘Perfect for occasional
guests, so long as they don’t mind sleeping with him,’ Pol says with a
laugh, indicating the human skeleton hanging by the window.
It took 15 months to transform the space, while retaining as many
original features as possible. Pol preserved the duct pipes, restored the
concrete flooring and replaced the aluminium windows with repros of
the building’s original steel designs. It was, at times, a labour of love,
because renovating a 10th-floor home in a 12-storey block is not
without its issues. ‘It was tricky,’ says Pol. ‘I had to get a permit to use the
service elevator to bring materials up and down and we could only park
a skip on the street for an hour at a time. It took a lot of organisation.’
Now complete, the apartment has Pol’s signature stamped all over it:
masculine and witty, brave and unique. His other home in the Hamptons
(featured in Livingetc, November 2014) shares a similar aesthetic
– they each boast a striking black-tiled kitchen, for example – but he
sees his style as constantly evolving. ‘Next time, those black tiles will be
red!’ Pol jests, but only if there is a next time. He knows he hit the
property jackpot when he discovered his New York pad. ‘It would be
hard to find something similar if I ever want to move,’ says Pol. ‘I love
the apartment and the terrace. I eat outside every evening and it feels
like another world. I’ve been totally spoiled by this place.’
See more of Pol’s work at pandtinteriors.com
lifestyleetc.co.uk OCTOBER 2015
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