Combining two New York City apartments comes with a host of complications — redundant service spaces, awkwardly located building core elements, and inconvenient plumbing riser locations, among them. Here, we faced the additional challenge of floor plates offset by almost three feet.

Our client was living in an apartment on the building’s south side when the adjacent unit to the north became available. Wanting more space and the chance to stay in a building she loved, she jumped at the opportunity, even if it meant dramatically reorganizing her current apartment, which she had only recently renovated.

Entered at the midpoint between the two original units, the new plan is organized along a central gallery that connects private rooms to the north and the elegantly proportioned public rooms to the south, where the ceilings are highest. In what had been the north apartment, Mitchell Studio designed a new primary bedroom wing with his-and-hers closets as well as separate offices, offering the client much-desired space she lacked previously.

With radiused walls and leaded-glass corner cabinets, the dining room, formerly a guest bedroom, uses a strong figural shape to realign a volume that sits off-center to its windows. Occupying what had been a primary bedroom, the study, meanwhile, has new pine paneling and bookcases that lend it a gracious, country house air. Only the elegantly proportioned living room from the south apartment retained its original footprint. Still, even that room was transformed with window casings that reach the floor, accentuating the height of the room, paneled jambs, and a new entry on the axis with the existing fireplace.

Now imbued with a character inspired by architects and designers of the same period as the 1929 building — Delano & Aldrich, David Adler, and Francis Elkins — as well as historic Low Country homes in the wife’s native South Carolina, the apartment has reconciled its original divisions to create a cohesive, graceful whole.

Interior Design: Amanda Nisbet Design