The glorious whorl of spheres arrayed over the sofa in this Manhattan living room is not meant as an artistic interpretation of designer Celerie Kemble's brain-but you'd be forgiven for thinking so.
For the Harvard-educated decorator, sumptuous plans and exuberant images are in constant ferment, just waiting for a game client to come along and tap them. "I'm always exploring fresh inspiration," Kemble says. "I get itchy to use ideas that feel new to me."
She points to the dazzling blue she chose for the dining room walls, part of the gut renovation of a three-bedroom apartment for a young family by architecture firm Lichten Craig. Kemble says she couldn't wait to try this shade-which she considers the perfect cornflower blue-because it's so unusual and exciting: "At nighttime the room is warm, with everyone looking pretty and enveloped; then daytime comes, and sunlight bounces off the lacquer and it becomes cheerful. It's strong, but this couple has so much style, they can handle it."
A clue to her clients' bold taste came in their choice of provocative art that adds a thrilling edge here. The living room's spheres are actually plasticized petri dishes, painted and meticulously assembled into a sculpture by artist Klari Reis, and the photograph by Brian McKee that tucks into a dining room niche is like a portal to another dimension. "We've always found it easy to express ourselves through our art," says the husband, "but our previous apartment was all taupes and grays. Celerie helped us pull our love for color into our everyday life. It makes our home very personal."
"I think this apartment is about the truth of things for a young family."
Kemble says the corporate-lawyer wife and her banker husband, parents of a six-year-old boy and four-year-old girl, made very few demands. "This was a downtown couple moving uptown," says Kemble of a relocation considered positively suburban by the denizens of SoHo. "We didn't want them to get up here and feel uncool and unyoung."
The fireworks begin in a foyer dramatically sheathed in oxblood grass cloth, a color that riffs on the tortoiseshell wallpaper inserted between the ceiling coffers. "Celerie's mind works in a unique way," says the husband, who particularly loves it when guests are shocked to see such a theatrical entry on the venerable Upper East Side.
The living room is a landscape of 1940s French furniture, vintage Karl Springer ottomans, even an antique Swedish daybed paired with pink Lucite drinks tables. "This mix is so full of happiness," says Kemble, who also created a red-and-white kitchen-a room she thinks has all the sweetness of an ice cream parlor. "Red feels especially upbeat when everything else is stone, white paint, or glass." To help the couple unwind, the master bedroom walls are sheathed in a luminous silk paper.
"At the end of a long day at work," says the wife, "I walk through the dining room and into the kitchen, and I feel lighter. It lifts my spirit."
"I think this apartment is about the truth of things for a young family," Kemble says. "They wanted their home to have a certain amount of order, which it does, but at some point, you realize that life is colorful mayhem. And that's the fun."
This article originally appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of Veranda. Take a full tour of the home here.
