Designer Patrick McGrath Brings New Life to Patricia Herrera Lansing's New York City Home

Patricia Herrera Lansing, with designer Patrick McGrath, brings classic prewar elegance to a loft in a storied Little Italy building
library lined with mahogany wood bookshelves
Custom mahogany bookshelves line Patricia Herrera Lansing’s New York City dining room. Custom table; vintage dining chairs; Peter Davies artwork.

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One could reasonably expect Patricia Herrera Lansing, the creative consultant and society fixture, to reside in a historic prewar building in an apartment that’s spacious, warm, and richly layered—and indeed she does. The fact that it is in Little Italy, tucked behind a graffiti-splashed brick exterior that once housed a holding cell, just goes to show that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. “I haven’t lived uptown since school,” notes Patricia, tracking her journey from Caracas, where she was born, to the Upper East Side, where she spent her formative years, to the West Village and, finally, this residence, where she joined husband Gerrity Lansing after their engagement. Constructed circa 1871 smack in the vortex of what was then the crime-infested Five Points slum—think Gangs of New York, minus Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz—the building originally served as a precinct station for the New York City Police Department. Sometime in the early 1980s, Gerrity’s art-collector parents purchased part of it to warehouse their collection. (Like Patricia, he was raised on the more genteel Upper East Side.) When Gerrity finished college in 1995, he requested the keys and has lived there ever since.

To say the residence has evolved over the past two-plus decades would be an understatement. “We got engaged here and brought our children home here,” notes Patricia. “We’ve seen the neighborhood change dramatically, our apartment change dramatically, and us change dramatically.” When Carolina, Gerrit, and Magnus, now 15, 13, and 11, entered the picture, the couple rejiggered the layout and eventually expanded into an apartment above theirs. “It’s rare in New York to stay in one place that long. We’ve celebrated so many milestones here.”

Herrera Lansing, in an Isabel Marant top, Madewell jeans, and Ana Khouri jewelry, arranges flowers at a Rohl sink in the kitchen. Fashion styling by Jessica Sailer van Lith.

A vintage lantern crowns the kitchen; custom table by Foundrywood.

At first Patricia undertook the decorating duties herself, working with architect David Bae on the various expansion projects. For the third, and what she deems final, renovation she sought out rising young interior designer Patrick McGrath to help polish it off. The two had met at a birthday celebration for Alexi Ashe Meyers in Turks and Caicos. McGrath’s life partner is Reinaldo Leandro, one half of the AD100 firm Ashe Leandro; the other half, Ariel Ashe, is Meyers’s sister. Recalls Patricia: “I said to Ariel, ‘I love your world and wish I lived in it, but I don’t. And I need some help with my world.’ ” Hers would be a landscape of color, pattern, and what she calls artfully layered “clutter.” McGrath, who cut his teeth at the office of acclaimed designer Frank de Biasi and led visuals for Giorgio Armani North America before going out on his own three years ago, shares a similar aesthetic philosophy. Where some decorators might balk at the idea of repurposing existing furnishings, he was energized by the concept. “To collaborate with a client who has such incredible taste is a dream,” he says. “If you’re already working with good pieces, why start from scratch?”

The project began with a field trip uptown to the townhouse of Patricia’s parents, fashion designer Carolina Herrera and aesthete Reinaldo Herrera. “I wanted him to see context,” explains Patricia, noting the way her mother mixes colors that don’t necessarily go together, her stylish yet never trendy approach to decorating (she’s had the same upholstered sofa for 20 years, and it still looks fabulous), and even the way she arranges the art. “On the third floor where the guest rooms are, that big Warhol portrait of Mrs. Herrera is just hanging casually in a hallway,” reports McGrath.

Back downtown, a mind-set of dusting off the old and purposefully adding to it to create a sophisticated yet family-friendly space informed the whole process. The grand living room, which had formerly encompassed the dining area, was divided into four quadrants. A pair of red velvet sofas—one dating to Patricia’s first bachelorette pad and another custom-made to mirror it—anchor the space, while a burl-wood center table McGrath found at an auction separates two of the seating areas. As such, it feels both intimate and vast, a perfect space for entertaining, like when Patricia hosted a cocktail party for 150 guests last spring to welcome new Carolina Herrera creative director Wes Gordon.

Damian Loeb artworks (left and center) hang in the living room, where matching sofas wear a Pierre Frey velvet.

The library was transformed into a dining room, which doubles as Patricia’s office and a homework zone for the children. “I really hate the idea that you have a room you don’t use, and I feel like dining rooms often become that,” she says of the multipurpose arrangement. “My mom was the one who said, ‘You should move the dining table in here.’ And she was right!” That space leads into a family room clad with a wonderfully charming vintage seersucker fabric. On any given weekend, it’s piled with teenagers, and even hosted young Carolina’s eighth-grade graduation party.

The apartment used to end here, but in the last remodeling the Lansings added a spacious eat-in kitchen and terrace by cantilevering off the back of the building. The tiered outdoor space features a ping-pong table set against a climbing vine and a proper dining milieu under a pergola for entertaining alfresco. “I like noise, music, flowers, food, and just life in my house,” says Patricia.

The bedrooms are housed up a gracious staircase, the landing of which is peppered with contemporary art and family photographs. Patricia credits her husband as the curator. “Everything that’s on the walls he does; everything that’s off the walls I do,” she asserts, adding that he has marked each year of their children’s lives with some kind of a portrait, ranging from Nicolas Sanchez’s ballpoint-pen drawings to a Duane Michals photo series.

In the master bedroom, McGrath reupholstered an existing sofa and chairs to create a comfortable seating area on one end, and installed a black Directoire desk and an oversize gilded Louis Philippe mirror at the other. “When it arrived,” Patricia says of the mirror, “I was like, ‘Patrick, it’s the whole wall.’ He was like, ‘Just live with it.’ ”

Reflecting on the collaborative process, she adds, “We had so much fun and generally agreed on everything. He’s super talented and has such a great, refined eye, but it’s also moved with the times. I wish I had many houses and unlimited budgets,” she continues, “and I would do everything with him.”

She did briefly consider heading uptown after she and Gerrity had children, and friends kept asking when they were moving. But ultimately “there was never anything I liked more. Space is a commodity in New York, and I love that this one is unexpected,” she says. “Most people walking by would never know this apartment exists.”