“I believe in being able to express that love of the home through three-dimensional things. If you love our aesthetic and appreciate the fine details of Natori, then why shouldn’t that be in your home?”
Josie’s rule of renewal extends to the home.
“Why does your bed always have to look one way? The bedroom is very important to me, and that’s why what you put on your sheets is where you should not be skimping, because you spend so much of your life sleeping. And, oh my goodness, the bathroom and a great bathtub is so important… I love the ceremony of the bath.” Josie has a ceramic tub “so big by the time you fill it, there’s no more hot water.”
That tub is in her house in Pound Ridge, one of several places she calls home, including Paris, Palm Beach and Manhattan’s sedate Lenox Hill neighborhood.
Josie and Ken, her husband and business partner, have owned their Pound Ridge place, a 1741 house on 28 acres, since 1984. Though she loves its park-like setting and seclusion, it was always “just a question of time” until they built a new house nearby. Their son, Kenneth, will be moving into the family’s present Pound Ridge abode when the new place is completed in May, just after the Natori’s 40th wedding anniversary.
In Westchester, they dine out at the Glen Arbor Golf Club in Bedford Hills, which Ken bought in 2003 and had Gary Player redesign. He’s recruited more 250 members for it, some of whom were at his blowout 60th birthday bash. The two Kenneths also love to grill.
“Clearly, my husband and son really love this (environment). Me? I’m
a workaholic so I could be in the city seven days a week… I could stay in Central Park and look at trees, so it’s not like I need a weekend house.”
Their Manhattan apartment is a brisk walk from her airy, light-filled showroom, where she is likely to play after-hours poker with fellow designer and Westchester neighbor Joseph Abboud. The apartment contains one of her favorite spaces – the music room, which holds two Steinway grand pianos.
“Although I was a pianist from age 4, I never had the desire to be a concert pianist as a profession.” Still, she adds, “I gave three major concerts– at age 9 (with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra), at 19, and when I turned 50, here at Carnegie Hall.”
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