Miranda Dempster, an art director at New York magazine, and Gus McKay, a tailor at luxury Italian label Brunello Cucinelli, moved into their airy two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment in November, decorating the space with pieces collected from around New York and from home in New Zealand.
The couple's mutual design backgrounds are hinted at throughout the house: a bookshelf of photography and art books, typographic references such as Van Gogh letters in the window, an ampersand pillow and a Richard Lewer postcard proclaiming "I Must Learn to Like Myself". These sit with mid-century touches and pops of colour: a Saarinen-style tulip table, sofa by Danish designer Jens Risom, coloured glass vases.
The living area's 5.4m-high roof and large windows are the highlights of the apartment.
Elsewhere in the block the space has been converted into a mezzanine, but in Dempster and McKay's apartment the tall white walls offer the perfect showcase for their art.
Many of the pieces were collected through the years or were gifts from artist friends such as Daniel Malone, Kate Small and Julian Dashper (McKay's brother is Wellington art dealer Hamish McKay, which helps). A drawing of an orange hopping rabbit is by Martin Poppelwell, a fellow student of Dempster's at Elam.
