The famous author's home is beautiful and meaningful all at once.
At once universally beautiful and deeply personal, a Manhattan apartment by Katie Lydon is what America’s reigning authority on happiness calls home.
In the living room of Rubin’s Manhattan apartment, Lydon — a Londoner turned New Yorker — created English homeyness by covering a pair of club chairs in a Robert Kime poppy pattern. The room is filled with personal touches, like bookcases inscribed with the birth years of family members.
Rubin’s family — and occasionally the members of her book club — enjoy the coziness of a living room outfitted in Clarence House fabrics and illuminated with the glow of multiple layers of lighting, including chandeliers from Niermann Weeks. The Venetian plaster treatment on the walls was created by Deux Femmes Decorative Art + Design. The curtains are in a Bennison Fabrics silk.
Bamboo River Blossom, a seldom-seen de Gournay wallcovering, is paired with gold-leaf ceiling panels from the same company. The dining room’s chandelier is by Vaughan, and the tabletop accessories are from Jung Lee.
The library is painted in Farrow & Ball Brinjal. The bookshelves were designed by Hottenroth + Joseph, the architects on an earlier renovation.
On a family room bookcase, a shadow box by Screech Owl Design delights visitors.
A detail from the master bedroom. The headboard fabric is by Cowtan & Tout. Linens, Matouk.
Lydon conceived daughter Eliza’s room as a classic but imaginative space that she wouldn’t soon outgrow. Cole & Son’s Fornasetti II wallpaper, Macchine Volanti, is through Lee Jofa. The headboard is in Last Hurrah, a Kravet fabric. Pillows, Jonathan Adler.
The drawings were given to Eliza over the years by her paternal grandmother. Desk, West Elm. Rug, Alexa Hampton for Stark.
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This story was originally published in the April 2018 issue of House Beautiful.
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