曼哈顿复古绿调公寓 | 设计师的细腻美学

Any decorator can slap on a scenic wallpaper and call it a day. But when it came to designing her “first grown-up apartment,” New York City interior designer Augusta Hoffman wanted something that would be unique. She reached out to James Mobley, a decorative artist in Los Angeles with whom she had never worked, and told him her vision. “I shared my dream of covering the walls in a grisaille scenic mural,” she says. The result is one of the most unexpectedly romantic eat-in kitchens south of 14th Street, a moody and atmospheric space combining olive-green cabinetry, Mobley’s ethereal Hudson River Valley–inspired landscape, and spherical alabaster pendants that evoke a pair of full moons.

The dining area of Augusta Hoffman and Jonathan Swygert’s downtown loft in Manhattan, designed by Hoffman. The travertine table is custom, the vintage chairs are by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, and the sconces are by Pinch. The hand-painted mural is by James Mobley, and the artworks are by Jeff Joyce. The entire apartment, a converted loft in an unprepossessing building on lower Broadway, is a testament to Hoffman’s deft hand with color, command of classical forms, and confidence in her aesthetic vision—attributes not often seen in a designer so young. The 31-year-old Dallas native founded her eponymous firm just five years ago but has already established a reputation for tailored, sophisticated small spaces grounded in classical architecture. Hoffman interiors tend to be pared back yet gently layered, with a sober beauty that eschews campy old-world flourishes. Her most recognizable calling card is probably her palette: a slender, tonal range of subdued greens, creams, and ochers, with accents of black for depth. “I am still pushing myself to expand my colors!” she says. “But it’s true, I do love green. I think of it almost as a neutral.”Get a Closer Look at This Downtown Manhattan Loft

Thanks to a prior gut renovation by the late Paul Fortune and ELLE DECOR A-List firm Gachot Studios, many of the apartment’s enhancements were already in place when Hoffman and her husband, Jonathan Swygert, purchased the place. “I loved the juxtaposition of the sort of ‘uptown’ finishes—the moldings, the traditional walnut--stained floors, the marble in the main bath—in the downtown environment,” she says. “You come off the bustling street and through our dingy lobby, but then the elevator directly opens into a warm, refined home.”

The tranquil living room is proof positive of Hoffman’s approach to soft-spoken elegance. While its white-on-white scheme might at first seem in line with any number of chic living rooms, there’s more here than meets the eye. The walls, upholstery, and window shades are a carefully modulated combination of creams, whites, and pale beiges in a range of textures, avoiding the doldrums of spa-like monochromatism. “I hate when things are too matchy-matchy,” says Hoffman, who even chose a sofa and ottoman with a similar, but not identical, style of tufting. At the same time, Hoffman does appreciate the power of a hushed echo. Consider the monumental hand-painted Chinese screen above the living room sofa. One might imagine the landscape would compete with the mural in the kitchen—but it works. “They interact beautifully,” says Augusta Hoffman Studio designer Emma Stang, who collaborated with Hoffman on the apartment. “It’s as if they are in conversation.”

A Perle Fine artwork hangs above the mantel. The sofa (left) is by Lawson-Fenning in a Pierre Frey fabric, the cocktail tables are designed by Jonathan Swygert, and the lounge chairs are by Blasco. The side table (below window) is by Andrianna Shamaris, the lamp by Pinch, and the carpet by Carol Piper Rugs. Of course, acting on instinct is not enough to build a business. There’s the matter of listening to one’s clients—​which in this case meant Swygert, who despite being Hoffman’s longtime sweetheart (they’ve known each other since they were 12) had no intentions of giving his wife carte blanche over their new home. “I had a lot of opinions, and I didn’t exactly hold back,” he says. Most notably, Swygert, a product developer, wanted their bedroom to be more traditionally “masculine” than Hoffman had originally envisioned it. “I kept saying that I would love some area that felt more like mine, especially because I was going to be working from the room as well,” he says. “I told Augusta that I hoped the bedroom could have the feel of a study, maybe even with a leather sofa.” (It may have been this point, he notes, at which “she called me her most difficult client.”)

In the main bedroom, the bed is by CB2, the sofa by Arne Norell, and the table by Laverne; the vintage chair is in a Loro Piana fabric. The wallpaper (behind bed) is by Gracie Studio, the lamps are by Adam Otlewski, the side tables by Jean-Michel Frank, and the sconces by Rayon Roskar. Hoffman admits to being skeptical, but she came through with the goods. She enveloped the walls with rich tobacco-colored Scalamandré grass cloth (“I love that organic, rusty color,” she says), installed a black marble mantel, splurged on a custom silk Diego Mardegan chandelier, and even found a very handsome brown Arne Norell sofa for the foot of their bed. “What can I say?” she asks lovingly. “It was his dream.”

This story originally appeared in the May 2023 issue of ELLE DECOR. SUBSCRIBE