What Happens When 22 Top Designers Decorate a Single Townhouse

“It was a bit of a challenge,” confesses the kitchen designer. Besides the original “bad '80s kitchen” that Peacock’s team had to demo, he was dealt another hurdle during construction, when the space’s two (small) windows were covered. But, like any good creative, Peacock had a Plan B: “Plan B was, quick, get some mirrors and some light,” he says. Mirror in the window frames, coupled with the right soft lighting, gives the effect of natural light. Peacock brought more nature into his “masculine and sophisticated” space with a custom backsplash made from sliced English flint.

Bridges—a dog lover—decided to turn her room, in the reception area right off the home’s entrance, into “the dog walker’s room out of a fantasy.” In what she dubbed the Salon des Chiens, Bridges enlisted R Graves and Company to paint a dog-centric mural of Central Park, then covered the walls in antique and contemporary paintings of pooches of all kinds, mixed with Civil Rights photographs of dogs for historic context. When the designer discovered that she couldn’t remove a onetime shower, she got creative, turning it into a moss-covered dog bath—proving there’s no space that can’t be made useful with enough imaginative thinking.

Rabel had two sources of inspiration for his room: The jaw-droppingly ornate Peacock Room by artist James McNeill Whistler, with walls covered in gold leaf, and Lord Leighton’s House, a historic home in Notting Hill, London. Since both are quite specific (and historic) designs, Rabel pulled out selected elements from both, working with MJ Atelier to develop a wallcovering that incorporates abstracted motifs from these favorite inspirations. “I deconstructed them for a more modern feel,” he explains.

Though the home’s spiral staircase makes quite the statement, Gluckstein found it was lacking in another area: “The house doesn’t have a lot of architectural features,” he says. But that didn’t deter the designer, who had a simple solution: Paint them on! He enlisted artist Christina Pepe to hand paint the 300 yards of Schumacher wallpaper covering the four-floor stair, adding molding, trim, and other trompe l’oeil details (framed interior watercolors by Jeremiah Goodman add extra layers). Meanwhile, the room’s centerpiece is a mobile made of 4,000 hand textured brass blossoms with crystal accents from Unitfive Design in Toronto.

Jenkins’s room is an ode to women and their history in the home: “Back when these homes were being built women didn’t have a lot of voice,” explains the designer. “This would have been a gentleman's study. Women now run the world from the home to Capitol Hill—so I said, ‘let’s make it a ladies library.’” It’s all about the details in Jenkins space, from layered window treatments (from the Shade Store) inspired by high fashion to bookshelves backed in Phillip Jeffries grasscloth for added texture. Our favorite touch, though? Walls painted in Benjamin Moore’s Pink Swirl, whose subtle hue gives just the right pink tint to cast the whole room in the most inviting rosy glow.

In Robinson's woman's study (one of three rooms in the house based on Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own) was designed to be "inviting, ethereal, and really a sanctuary," explains the designer. The room's palette is warm and soft, while wallpaper by Alpha Workshops adds subtle texture. Perhaps our favorite element, though? The fireplace, which Robinson cleverly repurposed as a wine bar.

In Mason’s fourth-floor room, an old-school radiator ran the length of one window-lined wall. Instead of sacrificing all that space, the designer created a radiator cover with an upholstered, waterfall top and voilà: a utilitarian item becomes a chic and useful banquette. “I wanted it to feel just really cozy and enveloping,” the designer says.

Visitors to Passal’s room, based on a 1940s Parisian salon, would have no idea that it’s chock full of cutting-edge technology. During the process of his full gut renovation, Passal and architect Daniel Kahan integrated speakers into the walls and then installed a TV that becomes a mirrored chimney when not in use. “I wanted it to be invisible,” the designer explains.

When Pappas Miron landed their fourth-floor living room, it came with a statement-making centerpiece: a brown terrazzo fireplace. “Most people would have removed it, but we were excited we got this,” says Tatyana Miron. So, she and partner Alexandra Pappas embraced the material’s vibe and color. “We wanted to play off of that, and it had an Italian vibe,” explains Pappas. The duo created a moody, richly-hued room to match it—complete with a tiny inset bar.

“The room had a lot of character, so I wanted to honor the original but bring it up to date,” explains Contreras. So, instead of removing or re-shaping the room’s original wall molding, she inset it with antique mirror and De Gournay panels, a fresh take on framed artwork. Bold colors pulled from the mural give the room more drama.

Pre-renovation, Young Huh’s top-floor space was a scary sight: a long room with bizarre, irregular walls, a sloped ceiling, and a series of windows breaking up the space. Rather than attempt to go simple in an attempt to balance the complicated floor plan, Huh did the opposite: She selected Fromental’s Brock design, a bold, colorful wallcovering whose graphic motif brings the room together and acts as oversized art. It’s the perfect pattern for Huh’s “artist’s loft” (“It’s very Jean Cocteau-esque,” she says), which she also outfitted with an easel, art curated by Cynthia Byrnes Contemporary Art, and a chandelier (which had to be carried to the space in parts) with shades painted by her artist and designer friends. And those windows? They make the perfect frame for pots by Frances Palmer.

Cullman & Kravis didn’t let an un-ideal room shape deter their design: the firm worked with architect Douglas Wright to add a ceiling treatment that “articulates the square” of the room and incorporates a circle shape to echo the round dining table, which they surrounded with arced banquettes that save space while looking pretty. The round theme continues on the walls, where Los Angeles-based Dougall Paulson’s Ebb and Flow design, made from tiny porcelain pieces painted in gold (and attached one-by-one with a glue gun!), acts as a 3D wallpaper.

When Peter Pennoyer’s firm decided to go traditional with their guest room, they knew how to steer clear of boring: “We thought the Schumacher pattern on the walls was traditional, but we wanted to take it to a more modern place,” says designer Alice Engel. So, they incorporated a citron color that amps up the otherwise classic color scheme.

Though Bartholomew’s study sticks to a neutral palette, it’s anything but boring, thanks to a mix of art, antiques, and greenery and one subtle-but-game changing detail: the room’s three-dimensional plaster walls, created by SuperStrata Inc. “ This was a small room so it needed some architectural interest,” explains Bartholomew.