Never judge a gift by its size or the way it’s wrapped.
You just might be surprised as to what’s inside.
And so it was with a lusterless townhouse on East 76th Street in Manhattan last month. Unlike the row of mutually dull facades to which it was attached, its saving grace was a maroon sign affixed to the front door announcing in bold white letters “The Forty-Sixth Annual Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club Decorator Show House.”
It was not until the door opened that the very air changed. Colors peeked from around corners, enticing you to breathe in a heady perfume of pure imagination.
A few steps ahead, the staircase was a near-psychedelic experience of colorful squares, triangles, rectangles and stripes, punctuated by black crescents cascading like a waterfall, all from the mind of Sasha Bikoff, who might’ve gone on holiday with Alice down a celebrated rabbit hole.
From the basement to the top floor, the rooms popped with vibrant creativity. From a salon set in saffron by Jamie Drake and Caleb Anderson to a room by Mark D. Sikes with a bed set amid a custom hand-painted Gracie scene with leafy branches and fluttering birds, all seven floors were, taken in total, a Technicolor dreamscape.
