At Home in New York with Anthony Edwards and Jeanine Lobell

Bold color comes naturally to gregarious cosmetics executive Jeanine Lobell, a makeup artist whose unapologetically saturated hues caused quite the sensation when she created Stila, her cosmetics line, 17 years ago. Hardly one to follow rules, when the free-spirited Lobell, her husband, actor Anthony Edwards, their four children, two Chihuahuas, and pair of parakeets moved to Manhattan from Los Angeles several years ago, they wanted their  5,000-square-foot Park Avenue apartment to reflect their New York City lifestyle, “which is hardly quiet.”

The family’s choice of architect and designer Rafael de Cárdenas, who says of his clients, “[t]hey’re brave, and they don’t want anything expected,” was a brilliant decision.  Cárdenas even admits that when it came to choosing a palette for the large home, a full floor in a prewar building achieved by his skilled union of two apartments, he deferred to the queen of color: “Jeanine is very exacting on that subject, as one might imagine—don’t call it lavender if it’s lilac!” he warns.

Let’s take a look at their beautiful, chroma-rich home.

In the living room, a pair of bottle-green chandeliers pop against petal-pink walls. The sectional sofa and cocktail table are custom Cárdenas designs, the 1940s sleigh chairs are from High Style Deco, the curtains are made of an ivory-colored Stark silk, and the iridescent framed wallpaper panel is de Gournay.

The living room game area (game of cards, anyone?) features a painting of poppies by Jean-François Debongnie, purchased by the couple while trekking around the world with their son and three daughters—ages five to 13 at the time—for a full year. From the painting, the living room’s color scheme was born.

The chairs are upholstered in a Designers Guild fabric, the tree sculpture is a Curtis Jeré piece, the vases are by Robert Kuo, and the rugs are Chinese Art Deco.

The dining room walls are covered in an exuberant vintage chinoiserie wallpaper from Secondhand Rose, the Gustavian-style table, cabinet, and mirror were found in Sweden, and the black-and-white rug is by Madeline Weinrib.

The flamboyant foyer hints at both what Lobell calls her “split personality” and what is to come. The supersaturated Venetian-plaster walls, hand-done by James Conran, “express her penchant for glamour, a pair of simple lamps her lack of pretension, the Brazilian 1960s wall-spanning credenza her love for mid-century design, and the oil painting brought back from India her informal approach and passion for the exotic.”  The framed fashion photographs are by Melvin Sokolsky.

The kitchen features stainless-steel and butcher block countertops, a sink by Franke, and cabinetry painted in Benjamin Moore’s Bright Lime.

The hallway’s playful field of green is a wallpaper by Sum Design.

A collection of paintings, drawings, collages, and photos hung salon style in Edwards’s office includes renderings by his grandfather Kem Weber, who also designed the lounge chair. The desk, lamp, and console are from Visiona in Miami, and the heavy cherry-red Samburu bead necklace brought back from Kenya holds pride of place.

Sisters, Poppy, 8, and Wallis, 10, in the bedroom they share. Their bed canopies from ABC Carpet & Home can easily be taken down or updated as they get older.

The powder room is sheathed in a black-and-white Stark wallpaper.

In the master bedroom, the custom Cárdenas bed is upholstered in a Stark fabric; Palumbo’s Tommi Parzinger recamier is covered in a floral Designers Guild silk, and the walls are painted in Grappa by Benjamin Moore.

“In every room there are one or two pieces that don’t really go in the conventional sense,” says Cárdenas, “but that’s why the place is so exciting—because it’s just harmonious enough.”

This makes sense, as there is very little that is ‘conventional’ about the couple and their children.  Edwards runs the New York City Marathon every year to raise money for Shoe4Africa, which will fund the first children’s hospital to be built in sub-Saharan Africa. And Lobell, having sold Stila, is now Creative Director of Kevyn Aucoin Beauty. In addition to filling the very big shoes left behind by the beloved founder of the brand, she also oversees a line of cosmetics for the über-hip boutique Opening Ceremony.

Interior designer Cárdenas sums it up that every home should be as exciting a mix as the Lobell-Edwards’.

It looks like the Lobell-Edwards family is very happy, indeed.

 

 

 

 

Images / Styled by: Carlos Mota, Photographed by: William Waldron via Elle Decor /