Blue, black and chartreuse, to be exact.
For a dapper New Yorker, Nick Olsen crafts a kaleidoscopic fantasia of freewheeling color, one-of-a-kind auction finds and yin-yang contrasts — plus a bedroom as handsomely tailored as a bespoke suit.
Interview by Kathleen Renda | Produced by Dayle Wood
A ceiling in Benjamin Moore's Chic Lime lends a flash of bold color to the foyer. The room's decor "is a seesaw mix of shiny and matte, austere and over-the-top," Olsen says.
Olsen gave pride of place to a Damien Hirst print in the living room, where walls lacquered in Pratt & Lambert's March Wind help brighten the north-facing space. The eight-foot, 38-inch-deep custom sofa — upholstered in a Kravet burgundy cotton velvet and based on a design by the late Portuguese designer Duarte Pinto Coelho — is "so cushy, you sink right into it," Olsen says. The antique club chair is covered in a Dedar blue-and-burgundy striped linen blend. The circa-1970 coffee table — another auction find — "adds Studio 54 glitz."
Olsen transformed a George II–style mahogany console into a self-serve bar with chalky white paint and a black marble slab. The opaline glass-urn lamp and mahogany mirror — repainted in gold and gray, respectively — were all "diamonds in the rough bought at auction, then tweaked," Olsen says.
The grille doors on the dining room's Regency sideboard are lined in chartreuse silk.
The kitchen's cabinets are painted in a wine red from Fine Paints of Europe, in a high-gloss finish that "helped the small space feel bigger," Olsen says.
An Osborne & Little linen warms up the walls of the den; the Dune sleeper sectional is in a Kravet velvet.
The office's Eileen Gray day-bed is upholstered in a Holland & Sherry wool felt with Passementerie trim.
The matching Holland & Sherry windowpane wool plaid on the walls and headboard takes the master bedroom "in a menswear direction," Olsen says. A sleek polished-nickel lamp from Gracious Home and an alabaster lamp bought at auction are paired atop a 19th-century Queen Anne–style japanned chest of drawers.
Color maximalist Olsen earned an architecture degree from Columbia University and worked for Miles Redd before launching his design firm. Read more about his inspiration for this home here.
See something here you like? Check out our shopping guide for where to find it.
This story originally appeared in the March 2017 issue of House Beautiful.
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