This Sleek Manhattan Loft Is Cool and Collected

This Manhattan apartment has an eclectic feel thanks to the furniture and accessory choices by designer Elena Frampton.

With a boom of lofts and condos all over Westchester, a local designer takes us on a tour of a Manhattan loft to gather inspiration.

By Jenn Andrlik  |  Photography By Joshua McHugh    

This 4,500-sq-ft loft in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan is home to a family of four. Not only is it functional for an active life, it is chock-full of style and clever uses of wide-open space.

When designer Elena Frampton started work on the apartment, the public-versus-private spaces were set, but otherwise she had a clean slate to work with. She and her team left the original brick columns and windows, which are classic loft features, but they framed out the bedrooms and baths with partitions and the home office with steel and glass doors.

The kitchen cabinetry was designed to look more like furniture rather than traditional cabinets. 

“We created a master plan for the entire project to ensure fluidity among the spaces,” says Frampton. “The clients requested a comfortable and durable home for daily living with a dramatic aesthetic and layout geared toward entertaining.”

As with most Manhattan apartments, there are elements that have more than one function.

“We built a partition to separate the family room area from the kids’ playroom and commissioned the scribble wall such that the wall is the art,” says Frampton.

In addition to the scribble wall, there are several other curated pieces. “We provided the art curation over several years, so the collection is diverse and varied,” says Frampton.

A scribble wall was commissioned to create a partition between the family room and the kids’ playroom, and it also serves as a beautiful piece of art. 

“We utilized design strategies to create intimate spaces within the loft to provide the sense of space rather than an open football field.”

But the art is not the only element here that feels carefully collected. The mix of materials and styles stands out. “We like to avoid spaces looking like a furniture showroom and so purposefully select a variety of forms and finishes,” says Frampton. “Even details such as leg styles and bases contribute to the eclectic feeling. We meticulously selected furniture, from pedigree vintage to custom tailored, and arranged furniture and rugs to create a sense of intimacy.”

This Spread: Steel and glass doors were added to create an office space and separate it from the other rooms. 

And as with many couples, the husband and wife wanted two very different styles. “The husband wanted a classic pre-war apartment; the wife wanted an open loft,” says Frampton. “We listened to both of them and utilized design strategies to create intimate spaces within the loft to provide the sense of space rather than an open football field.”

Sliding doors were added to separate the master bath and master bedroom, but still keep the space open and airy. 

Strategies included the furniture layout, dropping large-scale pendants at the dining table, certain colors and finishes, as well as art placement.

The artwork in the apartment was chosen over several years so that it feels “diverse and varied” says designer Elena Frampton. 

Frampton designed the kitchen to flow seamlessly into the rest of the loft. “We designed cabinetry to read more like furniture with interesting proportioned doors and alignments,” says Frampton. “The backsplash has a luminous quality to add further ornamentation to what is actually a very functional kitchen, which is used daily.”

The kids’ bedrooms have custom commissioned murals. The girl’s room has a scientific illustration of butterflies and the concept for the boy’s room was a forest. 

The bed and bath have western exposure with limited light due to an adjacent building. To create a lighter and brighter space, Frampton opened the spaces up. Sliding doors separate the bedroom to the bathroom, which is void of other doors all together including in the shower.

Overall, the design is sleek, modern, eclectic, and perfect for a city family.