This West Village Town House Is a Flamboyant Romp With Its Own Speakeasy

Kathryn Romeyn

December 31, 2024 at 8:01 a.m.·10 min read

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As one famous fictional columnist and fashionista said, “Anything is possible. This is New York.” And if Francis Toumbakaris—Greek immigrant, former ballet dancer, handyman, general contractor, and now founder and lead interior designer of his own firm, Francis Interiors—proves anything with his latest project, a five-story West Village town house, it’s that Carrie Bradshaw was right.

For a dream West Village town house, Toumbakaris introduced a narrative that began in the early 1900s and advanced a few decades on each of its five floors. “Really, every floor tells a different part of my story, each is a unique vignette,” says the owner. “It’s a very special, magical house.”

The total makeover he gave the 1861 “forever home” of his client, a tech company’s chief marketing officer, is a fantasy composed of abundant, sumptuous de Gournay and Phillip Jeffries wall coverings, Murano fixtures, Scalamandré velvets, and marble mantles. It’s also one of the speediest renovations imaginable for Manhattan, having taken place in a mere 11 months, including a down-to-the-studs rejiggering of the house and custom everything. “I practically slept there,” says Toumbakaris, the AD PRO Directory member.

The interior designer was thrilled to do that for a beloved client with whom this is his fifth collaboration in close to as many years. For their first project together in 2018, Toumbakaris says, “everything came straight off the shelf.” This time it was the exact opposite: She handed him a signed checkbook. “I always say for this particular client I speak her soul. The synergy between us is something really magical.” It took them two vintage shopping trips and fewer than 10 design meetings, thanks in part to the homeowner being an ultradecisive, type A maximalist who trusts Toumbakaris implicitly. “Not much is decided without my input,” she says, “but we speak the same design language.”

For the fifth floor living room, the client’s partner asked for the space to be inspired by a luxury yacht interior. Along with an exposed brick soffit, Toumbakaris designed custom millwork and a fireplace mantle that pair with a Vanguard sectional, hemp Phillip Jeffries walls, a linen Holly Hunt ceiling, Arteriors coffee table, and Ralph Lauren for Visual Comfort chandelier.

A sanctuary is what the owner was after in the 2,800-square-foot home, with warm, inviting spaces tailor-made to her lifestyle. Yet she had a less straightforward request too. Toumbakaris recalls the message he received during her first viewing of the house: “‘The minute I walked in I envisioned every floor as a completely different thing,’ she texted. ‘And by the way, on the second floor I want a 1930s speakeasy bar.’ When that’s the first text for a new project, your brain goes crazy,” he says.

The Francis Interiors designer’s approach was, “Let’s get this done, let’s go go go go go! I thrive on drama,” he says. “Our general contractor [EVGC Corp] got permits and started hammering, and we were designing as they were hammering.” For Toumbakaris, a theater person who has also performed on Broadway, “Being on the job site is how I design—it’s almost like meditation and enlightenment, all of a sudden things come into my head.”

For his client, Toumbakaris devised something of a time machine through disparate eras as one moves up in the home, all the while adding a sense of modernity. There were plenty of challenges, but also clever solutions. They retained original floors, doors, windows, and a staircase, the latter winding upward like a ribbon, its walls now covered in custom riveted Phillip Jeffries ivory manila hemp. “Imagine you are having a five-course meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant and the stairwell is serving as a palate cleanser,” says Toumbakaris.

Shop out the look of the house here ⤵

The kitchen-dining room’s bold, whimsical de Gournay wrapping reflects in the custom high-sheen Lucas Leibman dining table. “The dramatic Apparatus hanging light fixture brings a touch of modern elegance to the room, blending with the historical elements,” says the owner. There is Calacatta Vagli marble in the brass inlay kitchen, and a Toumbakaris-designed metal and glass shelving unit above the island that added storage for the client’s finer things yet didn’t obstruct the line of sight.

The ground floor kitchen and dining room draws from 1900s Art Nouveau, with golden, hand-painted de Gournay birds flying around it. At first, this all-encompassing artwork was a stretch for the homeowner, who didn’t want to feel like she was living inside a gilded cage. But upon installation she sang a different tune.

With distressed Phillip Jeffries velvet–clad walls and gilded ceiling, the lusciously moody 1930s-style speakeasy features a wraparound custom banquette designed by Toumbakaris, upholstered in discontinued Scalamandré Regale cut velvet fabric that the designer was able to get the brand to make again. A jacquard Gucci armchair and ottoman, Vittoria Frigerio settee and swivel chair, Nourison rug, and Material fireplace complete the inviting furnishings that Toumbakaris insists are not too fancy to put your feet up on. “We went to an amazing vintage lighting store in NYC, [High Style Deco], where I got a Murano chandelier from the 1920s for the speakeasy—what a statement,” says the owner.

The interior designer is proudest of the second floor 1930s-style speakeasy, something new for Toumbakaris. It features his custom designs for a flapper dress–inspired bar and a banquette upholstered in a revived Scalamandré cut velvet that snakes around the oddly shaped room. Plush, moody, and one of a kind, “it’s as good if not better than any NYC bar,” the client says. “Everything in the room is a conversation piece.”

Art Deco nods include the vintage Murano chandelier they found at High Style Deco and the ceiling coated in a gilded wall covering. (“We had an artist gild the molding,” says Toumbakaris, “it’s jaw-dropping when you walk in.”) The pair are also obsessed with the accompanying powder room’s walls tiled in a mosaic of genuine USA copper pennies the designer says “almost feels like a disco ball but it’s very Alexander Hamilton.”

“I work a lot and I love this space,” says the owner of the graceful, arch-filled office. “It’s me.” Toumbakaris designed the desk with an internal cord management system, extensive millwork, and a coffee station with refrigerator “so she doesn’t have to schlep downstairs.” The personal touches are plentiful and include window treatments by the Shade Store in a Kravet fabric embroidered with bees (because the owner loves bees), a custom Nourison rug designed with tigers crouching on pink banana leaves, and a niche to showcase the fashion fan’s favorite handbags. Additionally, the office features a Murano ceiling light, Alberto Murillo paintings, and a Brickfield Furniture Co. desk chair upholstered in Kravet Clarke & Clarke collection.
Art: Alberto Murillo

The pair chose “an adorable pink Gucci heron wall covering for my office bathroom,” says the owner. “Every pattern fits the mood of the room.” Completing the full bath are a 19th-century mirror, a modern earring light by Visual Comfort, and a Lacava vanity.

Above that, the client’s midcentury-ish office perfectly encapsulates her. It’s “fun, playful, pink, feminine, and yet sophisticated at the same time,” she says. On the fourth floor, the primary bedroom suite’s grounded beige palette and retro-glam wall covering evokes late ’70s California. Level five is another living space and bar where the client’s partner challenged an excited Toumbakaris to fashion after a luxury yacht, while the lush rooftop is a serene escape with stunning views of the city.

The owner’s primary suite occupies the fourth floor, the town house’s most serene level. “We went for everything that’s cream and beige until I presented as a contrast this wall covering [Phillip Jeffries The Grove Luscious Grey], which has these palm trees,” says Toumbakaris, “It’s California meets the 1970s and 1980s.” The Room & Board bed is upholstered in Holly Hunt fabric and paired with Vanguard nightstands, Visual Comfort lamps, Material’s The Narcissist marble fireplace mantle, and a Hudson Valley Lighting ceiling light.

In the small primary bath, Toumbakaris was able to squeeze a double sink into a custom vanity with Water Street Brass hardware. Studium wall tile, Complete Tile floor tile, and an Artistic Tile mosaic envelop the space, with Ralph Lauren for Visual Comfort sconces, Robern medicine cabinets, and Lefroy Brooks plumbing fixtures.

The home is by no means the culmination of the dynamic duo’s collaborations—they plan to do more places together, most likely with unrealistic timelines realized. But it’s an evolution still, a recognition of their aesthetic growth over six years, from playful to playfully polished. “I was always very conscious that this could not look like a TV or Broadway set, that it still needed to feel like a home and it still needed to be on the Earth, feet on the ground, despite its flamboyance,” says Toumbakaris. “And we achieved it.”