Andrew Torrey has turned the entrance door of his New York residence right into a teleportation system, whisking guests off to a different place and time each time they drop by. That, at the very least, was his intention.
Mr. Torrey, an inside designer, was raised on a farm in rural Kansas, six miles from the closest neighbors. It’s a setting he sorely misses and goals to recreate in his fastidiously embellished Sutton Place rental.
“I need to be surrounded on all sides by issues that I like,” Mr. Torrey mentioned.
New York is nothing with out its newcomers, and whereas the town embraces a large number of traditions and cultures, many transplants — together with a real-life cowboy like Mr. Torrey — nonetheless really feel misplaced.
To remain linked, some inside designers use their skilled know-how to remind themselves of the locations and folks they grew up round. Because of this, one can expertise the Asian influences of Hawaii, the Western prairie, the artistry of Ukraine and European design with out leaving the town.
A Prairie on Sutton Place
When Mr. Torrey relocated from West Chelsea to a 14th-floor condominium rental in Sutton Place, the area couldn’t have felt farther from the farm he grew up on in Kansas.
The glossy one-bedroom gave no trace of his childhood exhibiting American Quarter Horses, a breed recognized for its capacity to dash brief distances. However over time, he remodeled the place right into a Western wonderland.
“I do know you shouldn’t discover your pleasure in issues, however I’ll take into consideration how I felt after I was in my home as just a little child and it’s wonderful to really feel that now,” mentioned Mr. Torrey, 45, who owns the design agency Torrey.
A row of Lucchese Western boots wait on the entry adopted by a half-bath the place four-and-a-half-foot-long steer horns cling above the mirror.
Within the en suite bed room, two work of his grandparent’s quarter horses proven standing in Kansas prairies cling over his mattress.
The brash life-style of the American cowboy is a motif all through the residence — sourced from Kansas and elsewhere — beginning with a waist-high vintage Marlboro light-box standing subsequent to a stool from Paul Newman’s research, which Mr. Torrey purchased at Stair Galleries, an public sale home in Hudson, N.Y. Mr. Torrey grew up watching “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child,” “Hombre” and the actor’s different cowboy films.
Mr. Torrey’s assortment of drawings by the artist Robert Loughlin, depicting a person having a smoke, hangs on the partitions.
The pièce de résistance, nonetheless, is a 6-by-6-foot bookshelf in the lounge. Between the expertly stacked artwork books and the “Outdated-West” collection by Time-Life Books, are treasures from his travels.
“I’ve an actual aversion to ornamental filler,” Mr. Torrey mentioned, sitting in a deer-antler chair that got here from the country New York research of his greatest pal’s grandfather. “All of this implies so much to me.”
A number of sculptures sit on the cabinets, together with a Benin Bronze that he purchased on his first journey to Morocco, which remind him of his grandparents’ sculpture assortment. There are fossils and minerals and, right here and there, bundles of genuine wheat, his talisman.
Mr. Torrey, mentioned he spent $225,000 on the décor, and that the theme all through the residence is his connection to the Earth and the weather.
“I’ve an appreciation for pure supplies,” Mr. Torrey mentioned. “My values, my respect for issues and respect for folks, mirror how I stay my life.”
Supporting Ukraine From Afar
When Artem Kropovinsky and Julia Kropovinska moved from Ukraine to Brooklyn in 2018, they left behind quite a lot of their sensible gadgets for day-to-day life. As a substitute, the three suitcases carried by the couple largely contained silverware, ceramics and pictures.
“Contemplating we’re so in tune to design and element, it was essential to deliver memorable issues with us,” mentioned Mr. Kropovinsky, 32, an inside designer and founding father of the studio Arsight. He incessantly works alongside his spouse, Julia, 33, a photographer and inside stylist.
Amongst their stowed-away gadgets had been ornate, century-old silver spoons, together with one handed all the way down to Mr. Kropovinsky from his great-grandmother. Cautious to protect its patina, Mr. Kropovinsky refuses to wash it. “I don’t need to peel off the reminiscence,” he mentioned.
The Kropovinskys have spent about $5,000 to increase their assortment of Ukrainian décor considerably since settling of their one-bedroom rental in a brick home in Bay Ridge. Some treasures, like a ceramic bust of a Ukrainian girl in a head-scarf, had been discovered on the “I Am U Are — Ukrainian Creators Truthful” held final 12 months on the Decrease East Facet.
Supporting small companies in Ukraine is a small consolation for the Kropovinskys, who’re unable to return to their residence nation whereas it’s at battle.
On her pc at night time, Mrs. Kropovinska has discovered ceramics, like a desk vase resembling a poppy seed, a typical plant again residence, from makers like Gorn, Quiet Type and Dasha Ptitsami in Ukraine. Photographs of Crimea, the place Mr. Kropovinsky was born, are scattered across the residence in pictures and books.
On the fridge are mosaic magnets made with fragments of destroyed buildings in Saltivka, a neighborhood within the Japanese Ukrainian metropolis of Kharkiv, the place the couple lived earlier than shifting to Brooklyn. Mr. Kropovinsky ordered the magnets from Ukraine, the place an architect offered them to lift cash to purchase transportable heaters for households experiencing blackouts within the winter throughout the battle.
Mrs. Kropovinska retrieved a Thirties handmade linen tablecloth with matching napkins from one among her closets that she ordered from an organization in western Ukraine.
“It’s just a little piece of my residence and it makes me so completely happy to have all this stuff round me in each nook,” she mentioned.
A Style of Milan
Jonathan Fargion can go to Little Italy each time he needs, however when requested if the downtown Manhattan neighborhood reminds him of residence, he simply laughed. It’s “too touristy,” he mentioned; SoHo is extra his type.
Mr. Fargion, 37, a panorama architect who owns Jonathan Fargion Design, moved from Milan to New York in 2012 to attend the New York Botanical Backyard’s College of Skilled Horticulture. However he was prevented from returning residence for for much longer than he deliberate due to issues together with his work visa adopted by pandemic journey restrictions.
“It’s a really intense factor to undergo,” he mentioned of being stranded in America. “My dad was sick and I couldn’t go to see him.”
To deal with his homesickness, Mr. Fargion perused Italian design showrooms in SoHo. He crammed his Washington Heights prewar rental with tributes to his Jewish Italian heritage, beginning with a hand-carved wood mezuza given to Mr. Fargion by his father, who lives in Israel.
Mr. Fargion now travels about every year to Milan, staying together with his mom. She’s an avid collector of artwork and antiques, having a Sixteenth-century console amongst her furnishings, he mentioned.
Every time he goes, Mr. Fargion returns with extra items: a collage by the Italian artist Lucio del Pezzo, and a print of the cartoonish “Rattle-less Snake,” by Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky.
“My household all the time had an eye fixed for artwork and delightful issues,” he mentioned, including that he has introduced so many items again from his household in Italy that he has spent nearly nothing on his décor.
There are quite a few works round his residence by the Italian artist Giuseppe Capogrossi, together with a foldable print he present in his mom’s cellar.
“Capogrossi represents residence,” he mentioned. “If I am going someplace and I see a Capogrossi, it looks like a cuddle.”
Mr. Fargion is especially pleased with his assortment of lamps. The tallest of the group, the “Papillona” ground lamp, one other souvenir from his household’s residence, was designed by Afra and Tobia Scarpa for Flos. He additionally has the “Atollo” glass desk lamp by Oluce in a front room window underneath a cover of purple oxalis. Based in 1945, Oluce is one among Italy’s oldest lighting designers.
“It’s my favourite at night time as a result of, the cool factor is, it additionally will get lit on the backside,” he mentioned of the little white lamp. “All of the lights I’ve are like sculptures.”
Honolulu Meets Mattress-Stuy
It took about 10 years for Jarret Yoshida and a former accomplice to renovate the primary ground of their Thirties Bedford-Stuyvesant townhouse. Once they completed the mission in 2015, after spending about $50,000, the one authentic options had been a couple of doorways, which they painted white.
In 2018, the pair listed the studio residence on Airbnb and moved their possessions upstairs. They had been named a Tremendous Host of their first 12 months. (They ended their relationship in 2023.)
Mr. Yoshida, 56, was raised in Honolulu and moved to New York in 2002.
“After I take into consideration my home, I give it some thought being an extension of my household,” mentioned Mr. Yoshida, proprietor of Jarret Yoshida Inside Design.
Strolling via the 800-square-foot studio is like perusing a restoration showroom. Many of the furnishings are discovered and refurbished, in line with the strategies Mr. Yoshida discovered from his elders, he mentioned.
“My grandparents grew up working in sugar cane fields,” he mentioned. “When you haven’t any cash, you’re pressured to have a look at all the pieces like, ‘Can I preserve this for the remainder of my life?’”
Something custom-made for the area was accomplished so with D.I.Y. creativity. Within the kitchen, Mr. Yoshida crafted the glass backsplash with blown-up pictures of koi fish he took in Hawaii. To make it, he had the pictures printed on the again of glass and employed glazers to put in it.
Within the eating space hangs a tapa fabric, a present from Mr. Yoshida’s pal from highschool. The fabric, previously owned by the island’s Bishop Museum, hangs by a silk-covered thread from the cornice molding, a way Mr. Yoshida discovered whereas working on the Smithsonian Museum.
The showstopper, nonetheless, is Mr. Yoshida’s imported Japanese display, constructed someday round 1868 throughout the Meiji Restoration, a political revolution wherein Japan embraced Westernization.
It was round that point that each side of Mr. Yoshida’s household left Japan for Hawaii.
When requested if he’s nervous that Airbnb company might injury the dear artifact, Mr. Yoshida shrugged and mentioned he plans to have it restored anyway — a mission he estimates will price round $20,000.
“Even for those who don’t perceive something about artwork,” he mentioned of the display, which price $3,000, “you recognize whenever you have a look at this that that is sort of wonderful.”