VT Home Featured in Interiors Magazine

Photo of a living room in chelsea designed by Joe Lupo, founder of VT Home, featuring a thilo heinzmann blue paint artwork, neutral sofas, white chairs, nesting coffee tables

VT Home founder, Joe Lupo, created a comfortable, functional and incredibly chic loft in Chelsea that was captured in the latest issue of Interiors Magazine. We are so grateful for the incredible 12 page feature story, “Fabric of Life,” in the March/April 2018 issue.

“It’s not often that clients approach you with a perfectly clean slate. Hanna and Jon were relocating to New York City and creating their first urban home together. Their only request was that everything should be soft and comfortable to the touch, clean and sleek in design, and real. Needless to say, they were over the moon with the results and without a doubt will be my dear friends for life.” – Joe Lupo

 

Image of interiors magazine spread featuring Joe Lupo VT Home. Image features an office with a lavender velvet sleeper sofa, with purple and fuchsia pillows with fabric from pierre frey, two small walnut octagon tables, ethnic print curtains by romo, floor lamp by gio ponti, purple silk rug by stark carpet, brass and walnut mid century chandelier and colorful modern artwork by marc horowitz

Photo of a living room in chelsea designed by Joe Lupo, founder of VT Home, featuring a wall unit with a remote controlled TV panel, white japanese ceramics, books, blanc de chine, rosenthal porcelain, maya romanoff wood veneer, monarch alexander mcqueen print silk carpet by the rug company, sonos unit, bronze guitar pick custom table, murano glass seagulls, a beige cashmere throw, mid century Arredoluce 5 arm brass chandelier with frosted white globes, Photo of a dining room designed by Joe Lupo, nyc interior designer of vt home. It is a photo of wallpaper with hand painted koi fish from brunschwig fils, a brass chandelier, olive green pony hair chairs from profiles, a round dining table and three white onion vases.

Image of interiors magazine march 2018 spread featuring Joe Lupo, founder of VT Home. Powder room pictured in the photo with an oval mirror, gray marble wall, sink, art on wall and side table. In the other photo is a african sculpture, walnut antique chairs, bowl with oranges on kitchen island, styled shelves and hallway leading to other room.

Image of interiors magazine spread featuring Joe Lupo VT Home. Two images feature a bedroom with geometric carpet, burnt orange velvet arm chair, african walnut side table, blue bed with headboard, blue graphite wall covering by romo, side dresser with lamp and round bowl.

Image of interiors magazine spread featuring Joe Lupo VT Home. Image features a bedroom in a chelsea loft with an upholstered blue bed with headboard and floating side tables with lamps, chandelier from John Salibello, blue and gold carpet by stark, blue and yellow art on the wall and blue chair.

 

Read story below or follow link for digital issue.

FABRIC of LIFE

WHAT IF SOMEONE TOLD YOU TO PICTURE A HOME JUST LIKE CATE BLANCHETT, wrapped in slinky satin and cashmere, and lounging on a generously proportioned sectional? Would you be able to see the 20-foot-long silk-and-wool Alexander McQueen carpet from The Rug Company that spans the living room’s two seating areas? Could you envision the softness of the color palette, feel the textured seagrass wallpaper, or sense the subtle curves that echo throughout the space? That concept, the idea that personal style sends a message to the world, is something Joe Lupo thinks about often. As the co-founder of Visual Therapy, Lupo began by styling wardrobes before expanding into interior design under the label of VT Home. He believes the things we choose to surround ourselves with, just like the things we wear, say a lot about who we are.

“I have to understand what a person’s style is before I can give them a version of who they are,” Lupo explains. It’s a theory he distilled into five fashion types for his book, Nothing to Wear: A Five-Step Cure for the Common Closet: classic (the Kennedys), chic (the Clooneys), whimsical (colorful and playful), bohemian (earthy) and avant-garde (minimalist and sculptural). And the way Lupo sees it, this philosophy extends easily from the wardrobe to the home—once you’ve got your reference points nailed down. “Probably the most important job of a designer,” he says, “because nobody wants to walk into a home that’s not ‘them.’”

When distilling the style of a couple starting a new life together in a loft-like Manhattan three-bedroom apartment in a building by architecture firm ODA, Lupo honed in on “urban chic” as his touchpoint. Taking cues from his clients’ personalities and lifestyles, he worked with them to create an art-filled space with a touch of Art Deco opulence, a home that’s as sophisticatedly elegant as the Oscar-winner Lupo says the finished apartment evokes and, it turns out, the designer himself. (“I could move right into this apartment,” he jokes.)

The stylistic synchronicity between designer and client was apparent from the beginning, when the homeowners discovered the VT Home–designed apartment of German model Toni Garrn on Instagram and knew they’d found their match. Since the couple would be starting fresh, there was the added challenge of building from a blank canvas without creating what Lupo calls an “instant apartment.” So he sourced a range of modern art pieces, like the Marc Horowitz canvas that contrasts with the lilac palette of the study and a burst of pigment by Thilo Heinzmann that hangs above a Holly Hunt sofa upholstered in Romo velvet. “We wanted it to feel like it’s something that they’ve collected; something very thoughtful,” Lupo says. “Even the library. There’s not a single book that was there before.”

TO TAILOR THE SPACE TO ITS RESIDENTS, LUPO CREATED custom solutions, like the hand-wrought bronze entry mirror, now part of his VT Home line, and a TV-hiding wall unit with a subtle luster from a Maya Romanoff wood veneer. He customized others, like blowing up the pattern on that Alexander McQueen rug (and adding silk fibers for shine) and paring down the number of koi fish on the hand-painted Brunschwig & Fils wallpaper for a more subtle effect. The first piece Lupo found for the apartment was an unlikely place to start: a blackened Brutalist sculpture by James Bearden with abstracted figures that appear to be embracing. “The minute I walked into the space, I said, ‘This is where a sculpture needs to go,’” Lupo recalls. Now, the piece (which adds a bit of “avant-garde” to the “urban chic” mix, Lupo says) draws the eye from the entry hall into the expansive open living area beyond. Playing off of the totemic figure’s organic form, Lupo looked for ways to bring curves to what felt like a masculine space. Rather than altering an imposing round column, Lupo used it as an inspiration, placing a custom dining table by Caste nearby beneath a ceramic bronze fixture by Apparatus, all within a curved alcove he created and clad in chinoiserie.

With his background in fashion, Lupo is as keen on color as he is on fit and fabric. He plays with layers of shade texture—”I don’t want anything that doesn’t feel really nice to touch”—to create a cohesive, but interesting look. For this home, each room is a study in color: the living room’s neutrals, grays and greens; the master bedroom’s blues; and the lilac of the office. For added interest, and a “bohemian moment,” the guest room features a crystalline blue Romo wallcovering, countered by a burnt orange Milo Baughman swivel chair. For Lupo, creating the perfect look, no matter the scale, is all about that balance. “Putting together a look is easy; putting together a room is like a jigsaw puzzle,” Lupo says. “There are so many pieces, and each piece has to fit properly or it throws off the puzzle.” VT Home, visual-therapy.com

 

More from the Chelsea Loft below

All photos by Peter Murdock

To shop VT Home by Joe Lupo custom furniture collection, click here.