Architecture

Before & After: A Chintzy Manhattan Flat Is Given the Gallery Treatment for an Art Lover

by PressRex

Updated January 24, 2025

Before & After: A Chintzy Manhattan Flat Is Given the Gallery Treatment for an Art Lover

Gaudy ’80s finishes were replaced with crisp ones that let the owner’s evolving collection set the tone for the Upper East Side home.

Repositioning the original staircase transforms the new apartment, created the experience of a continuous second floor while adding a hidden study beneath the stairs, which lead to the downstairs bedroom.

Before Klara Hribkova was a New Yorker renovating an Upper East Side apartment, she was a tourist. For two decades, Klara made a biannual arts pilgrimage to the Manhattan, where she stuffed her itinerary with the the kinds of museum exhibitions, artists talks, and architecture tours that weren’t as readily available where she lived in Minneapolis. However, because her city was relatively affordable, she was able to purchase a loft large enough to hold her generous collection of art and books, many of its pieces sourced in New York. Klara prefers the work of self-taught artists, she says, and her collection includes Murano glass, folk art, and German expressionism, all sourced from galleries or online auction sites like eBay.

In the living room, Klara’s collection includes pieces by Leisa Rich, Leslie Barlow, and Israel Broytman. Her extensive collection of design and art books are also a big part of her daily life. — In the living room of Klara Hribkova’s renovated Upper East Side apartment, her art collection is designed to be front and center. That ethos—of a pared-down, gallerylike space—extends throughout her home thanks to a renovation led by BoND, a Manhattan design firm.
Photo by Stefan Kohli

In 2021, after a period of renting an apartment in Manhattan, Klara and her now-husband were ready to make a permanent move and sold their respective places in Minneapolis. Klara knew that going from her loft to a New York City apartment would mean having to place a sizable amount of her art collection in storage, but it was a trade off she was excited to make in exchange for a full calendar of cultural events in her newly adopted city.

After viewing a grand total of two units, she had a gut instinct that one of them, built in 1925, would be her new home, even if it was in a sad state: the apartment had a 1980s extension with various decorative finishes that added up to a postmodernist layer cake of shiny brass, gray stucco, fake marble, and oddly pronounced arches. However, where some may have balked, Klara saw potential. Behind the accretive finishes was a space with rare qualities, particularly for the Manhattan real estate market, including a surprisingly large skylight, private outdoor space, and multilevel setup, all within a ground level unit on the Upper East Side, no less. She made an offer that day.

To update the home, Klara approached local design firm BoND in 2021 after seeing their work online. Her overarching requirements were simple: a gallerylike space with minimal details and white walls where the art could dictate the environments; and a European-style kitchen with flat-door cabinets. Beyond that, she was open-minded when it came to remaking the two-bed, two-and-a-half-bath apartment.