Anthony Bonsignore wasn’t planning on buying an apartment in Manhattan, because he already had a home in the Westchester County village of Bronxville. But as a partner at Altman, Greenfield & Selvaggi, an accounting and business management firm in Manhattan catering to entertainers and celebrities, he began spending some work nights in the city.
“I was staying in the city, and renting,” said Mr. Bonsignore, 42, whose clients include John McEnroe and the actors Greta Gerwig, Sterling K. Brown and Dakota Johnson.
But one snowy night almost four years ago, he was having dinner with his business partner Frank Selvaggi, who had a better idea: Mr. Bonsignore should buy a proper pied-à-terre. Mr. Selvaggi then informed him that a neighbor in his own co-op near Union Square was selling her apartment, and instructed him to email her at once.
“He coerced me to do it,” Mr. Bonsignore said. “The next day we were in the apartment, walking through.”
The 1,533-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom loft had good bones and large windows, but it also needed work. The floral wallpaper, crystal chandeliers, mismatched wood floors and cramped 1980s kitchen didn’t suit Mr. Bonsignore’s taste.
Mr. Selvaggi had a plan for that as well: Mr. Bonsignore could hire his interior designer, Kyle O’Donnell, the owner of Gramercy Design.
Mr. Selvaggi had been a champion of Mr. O’Donnell’s work for a few years. In 2013, shortly after Mr. O’Donnell moved to New York from Washington, he had been hired by Mr. Selvaggi to oversee an apartment combination.
“I was working at Ralph Lauren in store design,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “But I started working nights and weekends on Frank’s project.”
Pleased with the results, Mr. Selvaggi introduced Mr. O’Donnell to Jimmy Fallon and his wife, Nancy Juvonen, who were looking for help with their house in the Hamptons. Mr. O’Donnell, who was just turning 26 at the time, won the commission.
“I quit my job the next day,” he said.
Since then, he has had numerous high-profile clients, but he relished the idea of creating something special for Mr. Bonsignore: an apartment that “evokes masculinity” with the sophisticated feeling of a grown-up bachelor pad.
To begin, he opened up the space by knocking down the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room and demolishing dropped ceilings to take advantage of the 11-foot interior height.
Then, throughout the apartment, he replaced the floors with 12-inch-wide ebonized oak planks and designed built-in cabinetry using strong, durable elements in subdued hues — thick walnut shelves, antiqued brass pulls, quartzite counters.
“Everything has a weight to it; nothing is thin or skinny,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “We have heavy moldings and trim, and these rich materials that really give warmth to the space.”
In the living area, the room-spanning cabinets and shelves, created with Bednark Studio, a Brooklyn-based fabricator, include an entertainment center and a bar with a wine fridge, finished with brass trim punctuated by flathead screws.
In the kitchen, the cabinets Mr. O’Donnell designed have navy-blue, powder-coated metal doors. He also designed a monumental range hood and custom brass shelf brackets; installed an unlacquered brass faucet from Waterworks; and had Bednark give all the metal the same antiqued finish.
He dropped the ceiling in some areas just enough to house linear slot diffusers for a new central air-conditioning system, as well as Nuluxrecessed trimless lights and Amina speakers integrated into the drywall, so they are invisible but allow the whole apartment to vibrate with music.
Just about the only thing Mr. O’Donnell retained from the original apartment was the window trim: “We took off about 10 layers of paint,” he said, to expose the wood underneath.
To furnish the space, Cindy Coscoros, his former partner at Gramercy Design who now has her own firm, found a mix of vintage, contemporary and custom pieces, including a Zio dining table and chairs by Marcel Wanders for Moooi; a 1970s Lucite coffee table by Les Prismatiques; and an upholstered bed from Ralph Lauren Home.
