Photo: Joshua McHugh
When Emily and Todd Voth sold their natural-soap company, Indigo Wild, in 2018, the couple realized they could spend more time away from their century-old home in Kansas City, Missouri. So they decided to get a Manhattan pied-à-terre. Todd became intrigued by “this wonderful Herzog & de Meuron building that towers above everything,” he says, referring to 56 Leonard, a.k.a. “the Jenga Building.” They bought this three-bedroom corner unit on the 29th floor.
The Voths are midwesterners — she’s from Nebraska, he’s from Kansas — although Todd went to Harvard’s Graduate School of Design before joining the Kansas City architecture firm Populous. Emily had been working in sales when she started Indigo Wild in 1996. Her first product was goat’s-milk soap, sold at farmers’ markets. What began as a hobby turned into a big business.
Once they bought the apartment, they had to decorate it. “We didn’t want brown or mid-century,” says Emily. They asked Benoist F. Drut, principal of Maison Gerard, from which they had bought pieces before, for an interior-designer recommendation. He suggested David Mann of MR Architecture + Decor.
But they were wary. “I thought, Is this going to be some big New York designer? Are we going to get what we want?” Emily says. “Because, you know, Todd being an architect and me being an entrepreneur, we definitely have our opinions.”
Mann also had questions before starting the job. “I didn’t know anything about them, so how was I going to do that? So I said, ‘I would love to work with you, you seem like a lot of fun, but what I think I should do is come and visit you in your main home so I can get to know who you are and what you are all about.’ ” Mann’s visit sealed the deal. “He really, honestly listened,” Emily says.
Mann, who often works in black and white, decided instead that “the best approach with a pied-à-terre that was so bright,” because of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, “would be to color-block, room to room, with saturated color.”“Our whole concept,” Emily says, “was nature in the sky. We wanted to have every single element in the apartment all represent nature because that was what our previous business” — Indigo Wild — “was about: plants and the human connection with plants.” (Her new scent company, House of Cade Black, was named after a Mediterranean tree.)
In the living room, “each piece of furniture represents nature in some kind of abstract way,” says Emily, describing the Boa sofa by Fernando E Humberto Campana as similar to “twisted roots.” The media room is not only midnight blue; the walls are embedded with twinkling lights in the formation of Todd’s and Emily’s birth-sign constellations.
“We sat in that room and talked about our connections with nature and the sky, and somehow that idea with the astrological signs popped up,” Todd says. It was written in the stars.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
The Dining Area: The Spline table is by Maxime Goléo from Galerie Philia. The chairs by Alex Roskin are from Todd Merrill Studio. The custom Soma Series light fixture is by Ayala Serfaty from Maison Gerard.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
The Media Room: The Edra On the Rocks sofa is from DDC. The sconce moon light by Ben & Aja Blanc is from the Future Perfect. The constellation lighting design within the wall-paneling fabric is by Lumen Architecture; the Midnight Sensuede is from Savel. Both were installed by Gotham Painting Company.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
The Primary Bedroom: The Lacrime del Pescador ceiling light is by Ingo Maurer. The sconces are by Phoenix Day.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
The Primary Bedroom: The custom leather platform bed is by MR Arch. The faux-fur blanket is by Christopher Hyland. The dressing room is visible to the left.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
The Dressing Room: The cabinet doors are smoked acid-etched mirror by Bendheim. The wool and silk zebra rug is from Edward Fields.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
The Guest Room: The bed is custom by Jaydan Interiors and covered with a Tigre silk velvet from Scalamandré. The walls are a high-gloss acid-green finish by Gotham Painting Company. The rug is hand-knotted by Perennials.
Photo: Joshua McHugh
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