- Hey guys. - Hi guys.
- Welcome to our home in New York City.
- We're back!
- Yeah, here we are.
Come on in.
[chill music]
So this is our parlor, as you can see.
We bought a townhouse that has sort of half of a parlor
'cause there's this huge glass railing behind.
And we didn't know how to use this room.
- I mean we have this dream of it being our grownup space,
but at the end of the day it's really
the idea is that it's a place where we come up
and have a cocktail, we can hang out,
have a nice quiet moment.
But designing it was...
- A disaster. - Yes.
- It was honestly the worst
experience of our design careers.
- There's three different entrances.
- Yeah, so where do you put the sofa,
where do you put the chair?
We just landed on this two seconds before everybody arrived
to take pictures of the house.
- Coming from LA we really wanted to find a place
that our children felt safe, that felt like a home.
And this house, the second we walked in,
even though it didn't look anything like this,
we knew that we could really make it our own
and we could grow as a family here.
[chill music]
- Guys, this is super cool.
So this structure, this glass railing
and this crazy glass bridge, was here.
So one of the reasons we loved this house
is this is the family room down here
and you get this incredible volume.
I think the coolest thing we did to this renovation
was design and build this bookshelf,
which is actually floating on the wall.
But we connected it as well to a bookshelf downstairs
and we centered the sofa there in the middle.
We downsized from LA, so basically this
entire space would've fit into an eighth of our living room.
But as our eyes travel around the room
they land on things that've come with us
from home to home, combined with some new things.
Like these sconces next to this thing from Mexico City,
from Pedro Friedeberg, from a thousand trips ago.
It's great I think to fill a home with things
that tell the story of you and your family
and that's what we've tried to do here.
- Dang it.
- Not scary, not scared.
- I thought I was gonna get ya.
- Not scared.
[chill music]
All right guys, so part of the home...
- Our favorite room in the home.
It's where the day starts, it's often where the day ends.
So we really wanted to treat this
like the heart of the home.
It's a space where we can laugh
and we've got friends and family over.
The kids sit here every Saturday and Sunday
and bake pancakes with me in the morning.
- We didn't move any cabinetry,
we didn't move any appliances,
and by doing that we saved a lot of money.
We were able to spend money on the finishes
of things that mattered to us,
like this beautiful faucet.
- This is from Van Cronenburg
and it was always a fantasy of mine
to create something with them.
This is custom, it doesn't exist,
which is so strange, and I feel like such a dad
that I'm so excited about a faucet.
But that's where I'm at.
I wear high-waisted pants and I care about faucets.
- We added chicken wire to the upper cabinets.
We just cut out the inside, or our contractor did,
because we wanted to be able to see...
I love when you're doing stuff to me
when I'm trying to talk, it's amazing.
- I like your hand movements.
- It's like, anyone married?
- It's like Pictionary.
- Anyway, in a small space it's great
to be able to see all the dishes.
The stove, babe.
- [Jeremiah] Yes, I had to have this one.
We wanted it to be bold and I've always wanted
a La Cornue, and I cook on it everyday.
- You like it. - And it's amazing.
- You like it.
I don't cook, I clean it.
[chill music]
- One thing that we realized, like most families,
is that we basically live in the kitchen.
And it is such a luxury to be able to have a TV,
a hangout room that's open to the kitchen.
This is where we're at constantly.
- The thing is is that this was a major decision.
We moved with both kids, we knew what our lifestyle
was gonna be, and you can see the volume in this space.
So this makes us feel like we're actually using
and interacting with the entire house
even though we spend 95% of our time here.
- All right, so strangely, the other day I looked over
and our son had taken a black pen
and he had drawn all over that suede ottoman.
- What was really interesting to me
is that Oskar got every single section.
- Yeah.
- It wasn't like he just went on one section,
he just went around, and around, and around.
- He's thorough, very thorough.
- He did a great job.
- He's thorough at everything he does.
- I started buying Jeremiah lighting as gifts.
- All of the lamps were presents, you realize that?
- I know, this little guy was
a birthday present to Jeremiah.
it used to be in our living room in Los Angeles.
And it makes me so happy to look at it too.
And I'm glad it makes you happy
'cause you're not an easy person to buy for.
- I don't agree with you.
- This bronze by our friend James Brown
who lives and works in Mexico
is one of my all-time favorite things in the home.
- Do you know James Brown gave me
the best life advice ever?
- No, what did he say?
- He said, to make sure I stretch and save.
- Stretch and save.
- That's all it takes.
[chill music]
Where's Poppy?
Where?
She's so quiet.
Hi lovebug. - Hi bug.
Look at this thing.
- No. - Oh yeah.
- No!
Get outta here.
- Pops, you want one?
- Yeah, I want three.
- No. - You can have one.
- What do you say?
- Fine, one.
- All right, scram. - All right, beat it.
- I love you, give me a kiss first.
Uh uh.
[laughing]
- Some sugar. - Perfect.
[chill music]
Okay, come on in.
Come on.
- Well we can't use that take.
- Could've used it man, it's real life.
- All right, well then great, go.
- All right, when we bought this house
there was no real master dressing room
that was gonna work for the two of us.
So this is entirely new, we built the entire space.
- And what's cool about this room
is that this was part of the bedroom
so this casing is all new and then there's storage
behind all of these doors with the fabric behind.
And that is really what we needed.
Our bedroom is very serene, super thick carpeting.
We've got all sort of monochromatic,
this Matt Connors painting that
we've moved from home to home.
- [Jeremiah] It's so cozy, everything has a purpose,
everything has a function.
It's just a cozy room.
- One thing we love is this sitting area.
It's sort of sculptural, this table used to
sit in our kitchen in Los Angeles.
This chair is part of our collection for Living Spaces.
- But when we purchased the house the fireplace,
this all didn't exist before, it was just a marble mantel.
So I worked with Cam Studios to really
craft this shape and this silhouette,
kind of inspired by the 1930s.
And it's all hand fluted plaster.
We're really proud of the way it turned out.
- And let me show you how it works
'cause the mirror, which is centered,
is actually only hung on half of it.
And then our television is back here.
Both of these doors open.
- So nobody can know that I sit in here
every night and watch House Hunters before bed.
- Every night.
[chill music]
- So this was the only stress point
that Nate had with this entire renovation
was the fact that we were gonna
have to share a dressing room again.
'Cause he loved when we lived in LA--
- 'Cause he's messy.
- I'm not messy.
We have different ways of organizing.
- Yeah, I'm organized.
That's the difference.
- This isn't normal.
Like I need somebody to label where my sweaters go.
- I can't believe you're actually
showing everybody, it's a mess.
- Yeah, you seem normal.
- [Nate] I just want you guys to know,
these are my two little sections.
- They're very large. - Just right here.
- I feel like it's adequate.
- And this is Jeremiah's section.
See that?
- [Jeremiah] This is my investment portfolio.
- [Nate] And that's his shoe section,
that's the shoe department.
- It was really about using every square inch of space
and making sure that it was smart storage.
And ironically it fits us perfectly,
it's nothing more, nothing less.
And I just have to--
- You really are still messy.
- I just have to step up my organization game apparently.
I'm not messy.
[chill music]
- This room makes me so happy.
- [Jeremiah] I know
- It's like this bright, happy, cute land for Poppy.
- One thing about this move that was really important,
unlike the room that she had previously,
is that we wanted her to have all of the design direction.
She got to choose the wallpaper,
she wanted pink carpet, she wanted her bed to be pink,
she wanted everything to be pink, and so it is.
- What's special about this room
is that it's actually not that different
in terms of the things that we had
in her bedroom in California.
I love this old antique bench
covered in this Lisa Fine polka dot.
We did recover her bed, which was a lighter pink.
But all of these things are meaningful to our family
and meaningful to Poppy.
The Hunt Slonem painting, this is Geraldine Neuwirth,
who, these are all friends.
The shell necklace was from James Brown,
who did the bronze downstairs.
- I think having children it's really
given us an opportunity to experiment with color
in a way that neither one of us ever did before.
- Now that is the god's honest truth.
- I would never have gravitated towards this palette
and I have to tell you, I really love it.
We're up here every night, rolling around with the kids.
We're just really grateful that we get to give this to her.
[chill music]
- This is the domain of little Mr. Oskar Brent-Berkus.
I love this bedroom, I think this is
the cutest boy's room on Earth.
Both of us don't believe in buying nursery furniture.
The crib is obviously nursery furniture,
but this beautiful armoire we actually
just had rods put inside because little kids clothing
is this big, so it's easy.
The painting behind Oskar's crib says,
always on the edge of somewhere.
That was painted by our friend Michael Hainey.
And this is one of two of Fernando Bengoechea's photographs,
my former boyfriend who died in the tsunami
whose name was Fernando Oskar Bengoechea.
And that's why Oskar is named Oskar.
- It's really about, again,
finding pieces that can transition with you.
We've owned all of these things for years.
This was Poppy's crib, it stayed with us.
This used to be our candy cabinet
when we lived in Los Angeles.
Everything in here has a form and a function
and it's changed five different ways.
And I think that's really important
when you're creating any space in your house.
And I think with nurseries especially
it's nice to kinda bring things and see how
you can adapt them to the baby.
[chill music]
We are so happy to be back in New York City.
- So happy.
- Thank you for letting us share our home with you.
- Thanks for coming over, guys.
See you later. - Bye.