The kaleidoscope of colors enveloping the walls, floors and ceilings of Apryl Miller’s home may not be to everyone’s liking. But they served a clear purpose for Ms. Miller, an artist who raised her two daughters in the sprawling Upper East Side apartment.
“The idea always was to make a very special home for my children,” said Ms. Miller, who bought the unit brand-new with her former husband in 1998 and took sole ownership in 2002. “I wanted my daughters to feel they knew the place was for them. Color is rejuvenating, and colors have souls. I didn’t want white walls.”
Their vibrant home, much like a livable art installation, encompasses the 29th floor of the 31-story Siena condominium at 188 East 76th Street in the Lenox Hill neighborhood. Over the years, the apartment has been featured in various publications and social media posts, as well as in the Netflix documentary series “Amazing Interiors” and MTV’s “Teen Cribs.” And it has been part of the Open House New York tours.
Ms. Miller, who is also a jewelry designer and a poet, is proud of the painstaking work she put into the quirky design and décor, with just about every color in the rainbow accounted for in her artwork and furnishings. But with her daughters, Dylan and Lyris, now grown and with living expenses rising, she said, it’s time to move on. “I always knew I couldn’t keep it forever,” she said. “It’s too big.”
The full-floor condo is on the market for $8.75 million, according to the listing brokers, Stan Ponte and Colin Montgomery of Sotheby’s International Realty, with monthly carrying costs totaling $14,708. The furnishings and artwork are not included in the sale, but they can be purchased separately.
The apartment extends 4,076 square feet and contains five bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms. Throughout the unit are panoramic cityscape and Central Park views from the oversize windows.
“Having this much space with as many windows, you can do with it what you want or keep it as is,” Mr. Ponte said. He described the apartment as “upbeat, cheery and positive.”
“It’s as if your imagination is able to come to life,” he said, “and when you’re there in person, it makes complete sense.” (Potential buyers who prefer a more neutral palette can also view images of virtually staged rooms.)
“When I’m here, I feel energized, but I also feel at peace,” Ms. Miller said.
For Ms. Miller’s elder daughter, a vintage clothing dealer and a singer/D.J. who goes by Dylan Sparkle, the apartment “made me who I am.” She said she would miss its “boundless vibrancy,” along with all the family activities that took place there: the “floor picnics,” putting on shows on the stage in her sister’s bedroom, and keeping the Christmas tree up until June.
The apartment has a circuitous layout. Off a centrally located elevator landing are two entrances, at opposite ends, one opening to the public rooms, the other to the bedrooms.
The main doorway, at the west end, leads to a spacious foyer with a powder room and a walk-in closet. The hardwood floors are covered in paint splatters, in the style of the abstract artist Jackson Pollock.
The foyer leads to an enormous living room and, beyond that, a media room. Both are decked out in swirls of colorful carpeting that give off a playroom vibe. Shades of yellow and green cover the walls. The dining room, also off the living room and with a similar eye-catching aesthetic, is at the south end. The living room showcases pieces from Ms. Miller’s “Sculpture Masquerading as Furniture” series.
“Each one of the pieces tells a different story,” she said, adding that she used garment fabrics because they were softer to the touch.
Previously known as the chair museum, the dining room had long housed Ms. Miller’s art installation of chairs or parts of chairs. That installation was recently removed, and the room now actually has a table and chairs.
The nearby eat-in kitchen has floors painted with splattered and geometric designs, cerulean cabinets with Plexiglas cutouts, and a breakfast bar with (no surprise) mismatched chairs. Ms. Miller is especially proud of the child-friendly kitchen table she designed.
“The kitchen table has clear Lucite legs underneath,” she said. “I drilled holes in them and had them designed so that they had little shelves in each leg. My girls liked being underneath the table with their little toys.”
The bedrooms are at the other end; three have en suite bathrooms. “What I love about the layout is that the primary bedroom is just as large as the living room,” Mr. Montgomery said.
The primary suite features two large walk-in closets and an extra-large bathroom embellished with hand-cut and hand-painted tiles. The vanity has an assortment of vintage drawer pulls.
Ms. Miller has many happy memories in the apartment, like the “Christmas after Christmas” parties she would host, and watching her daughter Lyris, now a professional musician whose band is called Talulah Paisley, perform on the small stage she built in her bedroom.
She realizes the apartment’s next owner will probably make changes. “I’m OK with having the whole place gutted,” she said. “I made my peace with it. It’s an art installation. Art doesn’t last forever.”
“I know I’ll be really sad when it’s actually sold,” she added. “I’ll cry later.”
The post An Art Installation She Called Home on the Upper East Side appeared first on New York Times.