Express Yourself
August 1, 2004
Charles S. Cohen of Cohen Brothers Realty, which owns the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and the D&D building in New York, says he “would never be foolish enough to attempt to be my own decorator.” Nevertheless, he wields great authority over those he has employed, among them French designer Jacques Garcia, who worked on what Cohen calls his “ultracontemporary” New York apartment; AREA architects of Los Angeles, who consulted on his Directoire-style offices in Manhattan; and architect Allan Greenberg and designers Bennett and Judie Weinstock and Scott Salvator, all of whom labored over the New York real estate magnate’s Connecticut estate.
“I’m a unique customer for a designer because I know what I like and I don’t belabor my decisions,” says Cohen. He describes his English country house as “comfortable yet classical” and influenced by the architectural designs of Edwin Lutyens. “Because I own design centers, I also have access to every resource that exists.” But Cohen admits it can sometimes be frustrating “working with designers who rarely finish a project with the same interest and commitment they had from the beginning,” which partly explains why he has taken matters into his own creative hands on more than one occasion.
“The best lesson I’ve learned working with designers and architects over the years is to explain as much of what you don’t like as what you like,” he says, adding that he researches magazines and coffee-table books for inspiration. For instance, captivated by Adirondack design, he incorporated a lot of wood and stone into his Connecticut living room to create the feel of an Aspen ski lodge. The master bedroom has barrel-vaulted ceilings and curved doors, a familiar sight in many 15th-century Italian dwellings. He also insisted on a design plan that integrated open circular spaces and rooms to accommodate his extensive collection of European paintings, 19th-century British bargeware and Staffordshire ceramic dogs, among other objects.
Of course, assuming too much control also has its drawbacks. “Maybe if I had stayed out of it, the house would have been done sooner and I might have ultimately been happy with it,” says financial planner Larry Guerra, who went through a series of architects and designers over a six-year period on the remodel of his 14,000-square-foot Spanish Mediterranean–Art Deco home before sharing his ideas and finding common ground with L.A. designer Susan Cohen. “This was going to be my dream house, so I wanted to incorporate every idea I could come up with—wine cellar, steam room, dry sauna, home gym—and the scope kept growing,” says Guerra, a self-described “hands-on guy” who wanted to be involved in every decision.
His second mistake, he says, was agreeing to a 4,000-square-foot addition for a new kitchen and master suite. “It looked good on paper, but once we built the new wing it didn’t look anything like the rest of the house. The new kitchen, for example, looked like something out of a spaceship.” With Cohen’s help, he was able to get the final phases of the project—an 18-seat home theater, guest bathroom and outdoor lanai—back on track.
“The house had an original stained-glass window with a peacock design, the old master bath had this incredible peacock mural, and there were peacocks carved into the living room fireplace,” says Guerra, who chose to highlight the Art Deco elements by downplaying the rest of the interior, using neutral shades of beige. To accommodate the rehearsals and private recitals of his violinist wife, Guerra deliberately kept the 22-by-44-foot living room spare, allowing the room’s vaulted ceilings to carry the acoustics without the interference of clutter. Nevertheless, he says he was very demanding when it came to the Lutron lighting and phone and sound systems in his library and home office.
Having now lived in the finished home, after
five years in a rental during construction, Guerra believes he has “learned
every mistake that can be made and hopefully how to control it.” Which is why,
after telling himself repeatedly that he would never do it again, he is “looking
around and thinking, you know, maybe I would.”
Enos + Co
323.655.0109, www.enosco.com
Susan Cohen Associates
310.828.4445, www.susancohenassociates.com
David
Dalton
323.525.3155, www.daviddaltoninc.com
Jacques Garcia
+33.1.42.97.48.70
AREA
213.623.8909, www.areaarchitecture.com
Bennett and Judie Weinstock
215.735.2026
Allan Greenberg
202.337.0010, www.allangreenberg.com
Scott Salvator
212.861.5355, www.scottsalvator.com
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