Martha Stewart was standing in Athena Calderone’s bathroom clutching a fizzing glass of Champagne that had just been handed to her by a bartender stationed in the shower stall.
Ms. Calderone, a multihyphenate type whose credits include interior designer, chef, author and founder of the lifestyle brand EyeSwoon, was hosting a housewarming party. The house in question: the TriBeCa apartment she and her husband, the D.J. and music producer Victor Calderone, purchased in 2023 for $6.3 million, and which Ms. Calderone has spent the last several years renovating.
“I actually used to go out with the former owner,” Ms. Stewart said of the couple’s new home, referring to Thierry Despont, the French architect best known for restoring the Statue of Liberty and the Ritz Paris, who died in 2023. “For a couple years, while he dated many other people at the same time,” she said with a laugh. Nearby, a stone bathtub was filled with ice and bottles of pricey Champagne.
Ms. Calderone’s previous home, a Greek-revival townhouse in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, helped to propel her to lifestyle influencer stardom where her penchant for neutral tones and muted marble inspired ample copycats. Ms. Calderone eventually started to tire of the design aesthetic she helped mainstream. She and Mr. Calderone sold the townhouse for $11.8 million in 2023, and Ms. Calderone decided to create something entirely different: a moody, dark, Art Deco wonderland in Lower Manhattan.
A former downtown club fixture, Ms. Calderone, 51, was once called “the modern girl’s Martha Stewart” by T magazine, and had wondered what Ms. Stewart might think of the comparison.
Ms. Stewart, 84, had worked as a stockbroker in the late 1960s before moving to Connecticut, rehabbing an old farmhouse and building a powerhouse lifestyle brand.
“I was modern before she was,” Ms. Stewart said when asked by this reporter about the comparison.
“She has her own fabulous style,” Ms. Stewart added, before making her way to take a closer look at some bedside tables detailed with tiny pieces of shattered eggshells.
Elsewhere in the apartment, guests congregated in a wide hall. “You just missed it; we were doing caviar bumps,” the model Ashley Graham said to Ms. Calderone, whose copper-hued slip dress pooled on the floor, mirroring the drapery in the living room.
Tuco, the family’s dog, darted out from Mr. Calderone’s studio across the hallway where the couple’s son, Jivan, sat surrounded by shelves filled with his father’s vinyl collection. Later, the designer Nate Berkus stepped into the quiet, acoustic paneled room while giving a tour to another guest.
The chef Andy Baraghani stood inside the media room across from the studio chatting with several designers. The small sitting area with a television featured a lacquered ceiling and a faux skylight which Ms. Calderone said was partly inspired by a ride she took on the Orient Express for her 50th birthday. A longtime friend of Ms. Calderone’s, Mr. Baraghani said when he first saw the TriBeCa apartment he thought to himself, “This is so not Athena.” He quickly came around, he said.
“What makes her so special is that she’s constantly evolving,” Mr. Baraghani said of Ms. Calderone.
Though it is a home, the apartment’s sparse, occasionally borderline monastic energy can make it feel more like a manicured museum wing or a perfectly assembled diorama rather than a place where actual humans live among their actual human detritus.
Some guests roamed the apartment, tiptoeing into rooms with a quiet caution as if they were breaking the rules. (They weren’t.) A few guests, however, made themselves right at home, opening closet doors to reveal automatic lights and perfectly organized shelves stacked with purses and shoes and racks of clothing sorted by color. Some pointed out features of the homes they had personally designed or sourced, like red Kinnekulle limestone or parchment inspired wallpaper.
In the foyer, the chef and artist Laila Gohar and the designer Rafael Prieto stood chatting and people watching.
“I think the place is really beautiful, obviously, but I was also noticing that a lot of the women are dressed like the place,” Ms. Gohar said, gesturing to one woman standing nearby in a black and white outfit with a deco-esque tasseled neck scarf.
In the kitchen, the limestone island decorated with tall taper candles was piled with a croquembouche, pyramids of dates and figs and other largely untouched bites, which Mr. Calderone joked to the room looked a bit more like props than real food. A brave soul appeared to have taken a single spoonful out of an otherwise untouched flan.
A little later, a kitchen staffer rotated the dish to hide the divot and removed one triangular slice, leaving the platter once again looking perfectly styled.
Madison Malone Kircher is a Times reporter covering internet culture.
The post Poking Around Athena Calderone’s Lavish New Home With Martha Stewart appeared first on New York Times.
