In-Joke

Is it rude to open the refrigerator of someone else’s home? was my first thought upon entering a luxury apartment at One Wall Street, where I found people peeking in drawers, opening closed doors, and photographing bathrooms. In the living room, what resembled a flank trimmed from the Panorama of the City of New York hung above the couch, opposite a large scale model where I might have otherwise expected a television—this couldn’t be someone’s home. And it wasn’t. “I just made up a client in my head,” said Elizabeth Graziolo of Yellow House Architects about the design the showcase residence in the historic Art Deco office turned residential building. Imagining a husband and wife who enjoy cocktails after dinner, Graziolo designed a sleek library with suede walls; the couple’s child (“not a kid, but a teenager”) inspired the bedroom featuring a tween-sized leather giraffe and other precocious signifiers. For one night only, the actually occupant-less apartment doubled as an intimate venue, where Graziolo and Madame Architect founder, Julia Gamolina, sat on a cashew-sh…