As a fashion executive, Lividini is accustomed to luxury accommodations in international locales; at home, however, she and Speredakos wanted to create a relaxed, elegant environment that was family-friendly and sophisticated at the same time. The couple envisioned a fresh-faced Manhattan apartment with the storied appeal of a charming European country cottage.
As passionate about style on the home front as in her business, Lividini follows a similar creative process for each arena: She starts with old-school scrapbooks filled with tear sheets. “I’ve always made a book for every home I’ve renovated,” she says, although the undertaking in this case was not hers alone. After compiling a look book for her new apartment, Lividini hired interior designer Charles Riley, with whom she worked closely to achieve the 18th-century Swedish Gustavian–style decoration she’s particularly drawn to, with its washed color palette, scrubbed whites, and painted woods.
The apartment, in a landmarked building dating from 1890, had good bones to begin with, including pickled wood floors, period paneled doors, and ten-foot ceilings. The dark wood finishes and recently remodeled modern kitchen and baths, however, would have to go. Riley let the Scandinavian aesthetic guide him as he transformed each room, starting with the kitchen, where he painted the seeded-glass cabinets white and paired them with pale marble countertops. He added a farmhouse sink, along with a custom corner banquette that accommodates an ample antique farmhouse table. “When you walk in, it really feels like you’re in a house,” the designer says.
The apartment’s furniture is a seamless integration of antiques and reproductions, all tastefully assembled for modern family life. In the living room, a striped silk accentuates the contours of an antique curved-back sofa, accent pillows with botanical prints add pops of personality, and durable hemp linen wears well on a pair of faux-finish chairs, the range of fabrics testifying to Lividini’s love of textiles.
A lifelong collector, Lividini showcases many of her favorite things here, including rare books about fashion, multiple chess sets (Speredakos loves to play), and pastoral artworks (including an Andrew Wyeth giclée) depicting Maine, where Lividini and Speredakos spend time in the summer. She amassed the mostly European array of furnishings during “all those trips to Europe over the years. In between business, I’d be off antiquing in Paris or London, absorbing that European sense of culture and style.”
Given Lividini’s fashion-world pedigree, her walk-in closet was a necessary focal point during the renovation. In a nod to Narnia, Riley designed mirrored doors that she can walk through directly from the master bathroom. But while the capacious cabinet is fitting for a fashion executive, it’s more Manhattan apartment than McMansion, and Lividini claims she could actually use a bit more room. “I have to switch it out seasonally,” she says. “I still can’t fit everything!”