Restaurateur Keith McNally tells the story of his New York apartment
Like many immigrants, my desire to live in New York came from films. The strange thing about seeing the city for the very first time was that it seemed more like the films than the films themselves. Places rarely live up to expectations, but New York did. It especially lived up to its nickname: the city that never sleeps. It was 1975 and the subways ran all night, bars served until 4 am, taxis were available 24/7 and diners never closed. Not that I needed to have a coffee and an egg sandwich at 3 am, but knowing I could, helped me to sleep better. It still does. That’s why I couldn’t live in any other city.
In 1977, the year Elvis died, I moved into a fourth-floor walk-up in SoHo – a neighbourhood of cobbled streets and fire escapes. I’d never seen a cast-iron building before and was mesmerised. There was a particular old factory with a decorative façade I could never resist touching. It was hard to believe that these intricate details were cast in something as ordinary as iron. My apartment had a bathtub in the kitchen, which oozed rusty brown water for the first 30 seconds, and, at night when you turned on the light, scores of cockroaches scattered every which way. But, at $250 a month, I couldn’t complain. In the spring of that year there was a sense of exhilaration on SoHo’s streets. Everyone appeared to be under 30, wearing a tool belt and carrying slabs of plasterboard. New shops, bars and art galleries were opening every month and the streets pulsed with the spirit of approaching change. Three years later, SoHo became the capital of the US art world.
Forty-seven years on, two marriages and six different homes later, I am back living in the same block where I started out: Thompson Street between Spring and Broome. Naturally, the area has changed a little, but I can’t bear to hear people complain about change and I particularly hate the phrase: ‘It’s not the same as it used to be.’ Nothing is, and nor should it be. Ironically, I’m now living in a building that, 15 years ago, I swore would only be built over my dead body. When I moved into Thompson Street in 1977, there was a beautiful Art Deco garage on my corner. In 2009, this was bought by a group of developers, who planned to tear it down and replace it with something ultra contemporary. With 20 or so others from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, I picketed the development. We stood about 50 feet from the garage, carrying badly written signs opposing the destruction of this wonderful building. Now, I have become a tenant in the very building that I opposed the construction of.
When renovating my new apartment, I went to endless trouble to make it look nothing like my New York and London restaurants. However, on entering the apartment, the very first words anyone utters is, ‘This feels exactly like Balthazar.’ Though I rent rather than own the apartment, this hasn’t prevented me from spending an absurd amount of money making it my own. And even though I think that taste is subjective, I also believe the opposite. That there is such a thing as good taste. The trouble is, those who use the phrase ‘good taste’ seldom have it. Because tenants in my building are forbidden from making anything more than superficial changes to their apartments, all my doing-up was done in secret. Especially the plastering of my walls to soften the sharp angles of the space. The renovation of my apartment was like something out of an espionage film. Carpenters and tilers would walk past the building’s unsuspecting doorman wearing suits. Once inside my apartment, they would change into overalls and work in total secrecy. I flew over two plasterers who I’d used in London and they would smuggle in the plaster hidden in suitcases. Eventually, the management cottoned on to what I was up to, but was so impressed by the look of the apartment that it allowed the changes to remain.
I tiled my kitchen and bathroom in white rectangular subway tiles. But, unlike the salvaged original ones I used in my New York restaurant Pastis, these were new. I just couldn’t afford the old ones. The apartment really came together once I had hung the paintings. It may seem strange that I go to such lengths to plaster and stain the walls when, the moment they are dry, I cover almost every square inch of them. I have over 200 paintings, which I’ve been slowly buying over the past 40 years. Many are from flea markets and Ebay, but quite a few come from English and German auction houses. Although I’m obsessed with paintings, I hate the word ‘art’, and dislike the word ‘collector’ even more. I would rather be castrated than call myself a collector. I like 20th-century paintings most of all: Cubism, Fauvism, Constructivism, German Expressionism, Modernism, that sort of thing. While I like Post-Impressionism enormously, Impressionism is far too cloyingly chocolate-boxy for me. The painter who symbolises everything I can’t stand about the art world – besides Jeff Koons – is Renoir.
Much of my furniture is custom built. I’m suddenly mad about rattan. My bed is from Indonesia and made of rattan and bamboo. My bedside tables and chests of drawers, and the sideboard in the sitting room, are all rattan and have a 1960s look. It’s the same story with the French bistro chairs in the kitchen and on the roof terrace. There are 18 colourful dhurrie rugs throughout the apartment, all handmade in India by a man my brother Brian knows. I stole the Penguin Classics wallpaper in the WC from the writer Plum Sykes. (The idea, that is. I didn’t steal the actual wallpaper). As for the terrace, it is a huge bonus in New York. It faces north and you can see the Empire State Building from it. In summer, I have my first coffee of the day out there. I haven’t yet had friends over to eat outside, but I would love to.
When I first came to New York, I thought I was simply stopping off before moving to Los Angeles to make films. Over four decades later, I am still here but the films were replaced by restaurants. I imagine, 45 years on, given that most of SoHo is now a protected neighbourhood, it will be just as exciting and stimulating as it is today. But one thing’s for certain: people will still be complaining it is nothing like it was. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Keith McNally’s autobiography ‘I Regret Almost Everything’ will be published early next year by Simon & Schuster. As told to Thomas Barrie.
BROOKE HOLM1/6Paintings are displayed on every available wall – Keith has been collecting for over 40 years and has more than 200 artworks, mostly from the 20th century. Another vibrant diamond-motif Indian dhurrie rug picks up on the colours of the sofas and their vintage Beacon blankets. ‘Selecting the perfect rugs, then finding exactly the right spots for them in my home is like a matchmaking process,’ he explains. Keith found the contemporary cypress-wood veneer lampshades on 1stDibs and has several of them in two different sizes throughout the apartment
BROOKE HOLM2/6
BROOKE HOLM3/6Keith lined the walls and island with tiles like those used in New York subway stations – a distinctive look he has also created in several of his restaurants. French rattan and cane bistro chairs by Maison Gatti partner a 1stDibs-sourced wooden dining table ‘that was given a real makeover – the legs got a trim, then it was painted and distressed by the brilliant Robert Padilla’. The windows look onto the roof terrace and offer ‘the best view in the house’. The custom dresser ‘went through a few paint jobs until it hit that spot of perfect imperfection’
BROOKE HOLM4/6White wall tiles and dark ceramic floor tiles are the backdrop for photographs taken by Keith and framed by David Rothman
BROOKE HOLM5/6A vintage armchair – originally in one of Keith’s restaurants – picks up on the terracotta hues of a chequered rug.
BROOKE HOLM6/6An eclectic mix of artworks covers the wall in an eye-catching arrangement.
