Inside a Flatiron Loft That Doubles as a Spalike Retreat

2023 Best of Year Winner for Small Apartment

Rarely does an architect get to renovate the same property three times—let alone within a decade. But the owner of a loft in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, an art dealer, kept coming back to Messana O’Rorke. After the firm designed his original 800-square-foot apartment, the client purchased the studio next door; partners Brian Messana and Toby O’Rorke combined them to create a 1,200-square-foot unit. Later, they returned to install a new kitchen and flooring. Throughout the process, the loft retained a warm, minimal aesthetic and oak-and-brass palette. “We expanded and altered it while keeping the same spirit,” Messana notes.

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Located in a former factory building, the expanded apartment has an 11-foot ceiling and seven south-facing windows. The challenge, Messana says, “was how to keep the essence of a loft, that big open space, without creating a studio.” The solution lay in sliding frosted-glass doors trimmed in unlacquered brass that separate the bedroom suite and a snug den from the living and dining area, but allow light to flood through.

The first iteration of the apartment had a galley kitchen that the client rarely used, but over the years, he began to cook more and wanted to entertain. Messana O’Rorke opened the kitchen to the great room, removing the partition wall and installing a basaltina stone countertop with a fridge and freezer hidden underneath. Cabinets clad in French oak match new 9-inch-wide floorboards that replaced fumed-oak flooring to further lighten the space.

For all their appeal, lofts can lack an element of surprise: You walk in the door and see a huge space in its entirety. “The problem is you only have one experience—it’s one-note,” Messana says. He and O’Rorke laid out the apartment so it reveals itself gradually, creating a sequence of events. At the entrance, visitors encounter an intimate foyer with a shoe closet, then turn into a storage-lined hallway and glimpse the front windows. But it’s only farther down, when they arrive at the kitchen, that they can start to appreciate the full size of the loft—and it takes further exploration still to discover the more tucked-away den and bedroom.

There’s one last surprise. “Nobody expects the main bathroom—it’s insane,” Messana says. A masculine, spalike retreat, it’s covered almost entirely in exuberant travertine, including a sexy shower stall with an illuminated tinted mirror. An encore indeed.

Walk Through the Manhattan Loft Apartment

fair: stools (kitchen).
dwr: sofa (living area).
armadillo: rug.
the citizenry: ottoman.
water­works: fittings (bathroom).
uc group: custom bed (bedroom), custom glass panels, custom sliders (bedroom, living area), medicine cabinet (bathroom), shelves (closet).
juniper: lamp (bedroom).
west nyc home: sofa (den).

the hudson company: wood flooring.
lv stone source: stone supplier.
zerolux lighting design: lighting consultant.
m.a. rubiano: mep.
wood floors & surfaces: woodwork.
abs renovations: general contractor.