Can a skyscraper be Shaker-style? See for yourself
The designers Heide Hendricks and Rafe Churchill are known for a visual language that pulls the past into the present. Call it Shaker with a twist. Based in Connecticut’s rural Litchfield County, their ELLE Decor A-list firm, Hendricks Churchill, is a go-to for renovations of period architecture — updated country farmhouses, prewar city apartments, 19th-century brownstones — infusing them with a traditionalism that works in a contemporary context.
But to judge from their latest project, the duo — who are a married couple — aren’t afraid of jumping out of the history books and several stories off the ground. When a young family approached them to decorate their apartment in a new-build high-rise on New York’s Upper East Side, all they could think of was the modernist architecture in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. ‘It was a space that could have been designed by Howard Roark — and the polar opposite of our style,’ Hendricks says. ‘It was almost surreal.’
The clients, who have three young children, were determined. They first read about the designers in a 2021 story in ELLE Decor and were drawn to the warmth of their spaces as well as to their sustainable approach to design. At the time, the family was lumbering through the pandemic in a monochromatic apartment in Lower Manhattan’s East Village.
They found a spectacular apartment in a luxury tower designed by the developers DDG in Carnegie Hill, a neighbourhood more known for townhouses and Gilded Age mansions than soaring spaces with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. They were attracted to the brightness and high-tech features of the new building, but the atmosphere was far from homey. As soon as they closed on the apartment, they knew just whom to call.
‘We had worked with designers who can make your place look great in pictures,’ the husband says. ‘But it takes a different level of experience to make a good-looking home that is also functional. Heide spent a lot of time with our family to figure out how to make this an embracing home for us and our kids.’
As you step out of the elevators and straight into the foyer, the husband’s study, with its unobstructed views of the city, is the first thing you notice. To the left are the bedrooms, and to the right is the living room, which opens directly onto the dining room and kitchen.
Each room flows into the next, physically and visually, to allow the family to be together as the day and its activities shift. The living room is the home’s focal point: It’s here, in this shared space, that the wife plays her Yamaha piano, with her daughters occasionally accompanying on their toy flutes.
Entry
The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Sulking Room Pink. The vintage Roche Bobois bench is in a Dedar fabric, the Tapis rug is from Hommés Studio, and the vintage oil painting is from Cottage + Camp.
Breakfast Nook
In a 43rd-floor apartment in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hill, designed by Hendricks Churchill in a building by DDG, the midcentury Danish sofa is in a Rose Uniacke fabric, the bleached-maple table is by Brian Persico, the Paul McCobb chairs are vintage, the sconces are by Hector Finch, and the artwork is by Lizzie Gill.
Kitchen
A Flos pendant hangs over a custom Molteni island. The appliances are by Gaggenau, the barstools by Nickey Kehoe, and the wallcovering by Jennifer Shorto. The counters and stone wall are in Statuario marble.
Living Room
The sectional is by B&B Italia, and the vintage Italian armchair in a Dedar fabric is from Holler & Squall. The custom cocktail table is by Christopher Williams, the midcentury chandelier is by Stilnovo, the piano is by Yamaha, and the rug is by Christopher Farr. The walls are painted in Dusty Road by Benjamin Moore and the baseboards in Smoked Trout by Farrow & Ball.
Study
A pair of B&B Italia chairs sits in front of a vintage Kai Kristiansen modular teak bookshelf. The 1970s table is from Montage Antiques, the window shade is of a Zak & Fox fabric, and the walls are covered in custom wooden tambour paneling.
Dining Room
The room’s eclectic mix includes a Swedish midcentury sideboard in the style of Josef Frank (left), a custom walnut dining table from Fern, and an Apparatus chandelier. The antique Swedish cabinet (right) is from Montage Antiques, the vintage Razor chairs are by Henning Kjaernulf, and the rug is by Marc Phillips Rugs.
Dining Room
A vintage abstract painting found in an antique shop hangs over a midcentury Swedish sideboard in the style of Josef Frank. The curtains are of a Rogers & Goffigon fabric.
Primary Bedroom
The room is wrapped in Gucci wallpaper, and the curtains are of a Rogers & Goffigon fabric. The bed is by Roche Bobois, the nightstand by Crump & Kwash, the lamp by Marianna Kennedy, and the rug by Beni Rugs.
Primary Bathroom
The walls and floor are covered in silver travertine slabs and mosaic tile. The side table is from Lulu and Georgia, and the towels are from Goodee.
Daughters’ Bedroom
The wallpaper is in a Josef Frank pattern, the beds are by Oeuf, the Grain side table is from Good Colony, and the custom millwork is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Citron.
Hendricks sheathed the study’s walls in painted tambour panelling, a design device with a double-duty benefit: It both provides sound insulation and has a ridged surface that echoes the chunkier ones in the living room’s walnut sideboard by Stephen Bukowski.
‘We spend a lot of time together in the living room because it’s connected to my study,’ the husband explains. ‘The girls’ toys spill into the room when I leave the doors open. And because the kids are always complaining about my phone calls, Heide insulated the room, so my voice doesn’t travel throughout the house.’
Florals are a Hendricks specialty. She used Gucci’s Chinese landscape–inspired wallpaper in the primary suite and a Josef Frank fabric for the wall behind the beds in the daughters’ room. The starting point for her design scheme, though, was not flowers but fruit, in the form of Jennifer Shorto’s strawberry vine wallcovering, which wraps the walls of the kitchen. Meanwhile, the living room armchairs are clad in a Dedar floral, and even the dining room’s cabinet sports a botanical pattern.
Hendricks Churchill chose a palette of oranges and pinks as a unifying colour, from the kitchen’s apricot to the deeper mauve tone in the foyer, which lends a softness in a space that sees less natural light.
In the dining and living rooms, Hendricks employed a visual trick: she elongated the baseboards and painted them in dusty lilac. The gesture is one of many design techniques that ground this high-flying family home, bringing it back down to earth. Even up in the sky, Hendricks Churchill’s saturated Shaker aesthetic feels at home, proving the truth behind the Shaker wisdom: If you focus more on how you work rather than where you work, the results will speak for themselves. hendrickschurchill.com
This story originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of ELLE DECOR. SUBSCRIBE
