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Throughout the more than three decades he has spent building Aero, his multifaceted design empire, Thomas O’Brien has held onto the earnest soulfulness that first animated him. From his headquarters in Manhattan, he runs a thrumming enterprise that encompasses product design teams, the Aero shop in the New York Design Center, and Copper Beech, the emporium he owns with husband Dan Fink near their home in Bellport, Long Island.
In another corner of the living room, O’Brien created a seating area with an L-shaped Jonas sofa, vintage Osvaldo Borsani settee re-covered in a Pierre Frey fabric, chair in Patterson Flynn’s Gunta cut velvet, and a Jacques Adnet coffee table. A set of Robert Mangold prints and mirror from Aero hang above. To the left of the sofa, a 1960s spindle-base lamp rests on a Frank Lloyd Wright chest.
Laura Resen
His Luxor table lamp for Visual Comfort sits on a vintage Saint-Gobain glass-topped table.
Laura Resen
O'Brien's Colette dining chairs for Century Furniture surround the dining table in the ocean-view dining room.
Laura ResenBut it’s his interiors, where it all began, that unify his disparate pursuits and feed his deepest creative impulses. Working one-on-one with a client to craft a wholly imagined environment—a collage of rare furnishings, precious art, and pieces of his own creation that display both an encyclopedic knowledge of design history and yen for unembellished modernism—is a meditative and enlivening practice for him.
In the entry gallery, a collection of works by noted 20th-century artists (clockwise from top left: Irving Penn, Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, Milton Avery, and Giorgio Morandi) share a seaside theme. Ico Parisi console; Carlo Mollino chairs.
Laura ResenAs such, it was a particular pleasure to be asked to work on a home with one of the first couples who ever hired him, back when he was a virtual unknown. Over the years, he has done apartments for them in New York, as well as houses in the Hamptons, but this time, the challenge was unique: They had recently bought a 5,000-square-foot, newly built 10th-floor apartment in Miami that was a near-blank slate. There were views of the Atlantic from every room, but not much to distinguish the space. The task was to transform the sun-soaked rooms into a refuge of sophisticated modernism—a stark contrast to the flashy, bright-white aesthetic the city is known for—with subtle nods to the beach that were miles away from Florida kitsch.
Elsewhere in the entry gallery, O’Brien hung Pablo Picasso ceramic plates over a vintage oak chest and his Colette dining chairs for Century Furniture.
Laura ResenThe easy part was the collaboration: “After all this time, we speak a common language,” he says of his clients. “We can work on a deeper level.” The project also enabled O’Brien to indulge his first love: collecting. “It’s my great passion,” he says. When he was a child in upstate New York, his father and grandfather took him to antiques stores and estate auctions where generations of furnishings, some dating to the early 19th century, would fly by, an experience that would imprint on him forever. “I just never stop shopping,” O’Brien adds.
O’Brien softened the developer-designed limestone and cerused-oak kitchen with airy curtains and Ruhlmann armchairs by Jonas, both in Larsen fabrics. Layers of lighting—including Maxey Globe Pendants and a Dally Desk Lamp by O’Brien for Visual Comfort—create a cozy atmosphere in the evening.
Laura Resen
A gilt mirror from Aero nods at O’Brien’s penchant for mirrored backsplashes. Faucet and pot filler by Waterworks.
Laura Resen
A 1975 Alexander Calder tapestry hangs in the kitchen.
Laura ResenThese clients have a particularly fine collection of 20th-century European and American furnishings and art, and while most of the things in the Miami apartment were bought for it specifically, O’Brien did pull in a few items from their other residences. On the entryway wall, for example, hangs an arrangement of photographs and prints that tip at the locale, including Irving Penn’s Fish Made of Fish and Milton Avery’s Sailboat. Below them he has placed a rare Ico Parisi rosewood console flanked by a pair of Carlo Mollino chairs.
The two years it took him to complete the Miami apartment were steeped in that same joy of discovery: He pored over auction catalogs and got lost in antiques shops and galleries. Rather than relying on online marketplaces, O’Brien insists on seeing objects in real life before he purchases them for clients. “I need to see the scale and quality and actual finishes,” he says. (Unsurprisingly, he is also the rare designer who still starts with hand-sketching his floor plans.)
A serene shade (Donald Kaufman No. 29) wraps the primary bedroom, which also features a mix of vintage furniture (including a desk and chair by Pierre Jeanneret) and pieces of O’Brien’s own design (like the Century Furniture sofa and Phoenix silk Patterson Flynn rug).
Laura Resen
In another guest room, a woven side table by O’Brien for Century Furniture and oak lamp from Aero add natural texture; Haiku rug by O’Brien for Patterson Flynn.
Laura Resen
The custom closet doors are adorned with hardware by O’Brien for Waterworks; his Astrid rug for Patterson Flynn grounds the space.
Laura ResenWhen O’Brien heard, mid-project, that Christie’s London was having a sale of Picasso plates, he considered it fate: Now, in the vestibule leading to the living room, a selection chosen for their pale tints and motifs of suns and birds hangs above an oak chest from the 1950s. “The key is to gently suggest you’re at the beach without being heavy-handed about it,” the designer says.
A Marc Newson chair strikes a sculptural note in the primary bedroom while the vintage caned-front sideboard and Thomas Boog shell-encrusted mirrors offer a sophisticated take on Floridian style; curtains in Schumacher’s fringed Acadia fabric.
Laura ResenFor O’Brien, custom millwork, fabrics, and fixtures are the bones of great design, especially if a space doesn’t come with a history or pedigree. To that end, he built out the apartment’s hall closets with whitewashed louvered and raffia fronts that suggest the gravitas “of good vintage furniture,” he says. In the developer-designed cerused-oak kitchen, he created character via the addition of precious objects like a framed Alexander Calder tapestry, Harry Bertoia Sound Sculpture, and Elsa Peretti terra-cotta Bone candlesticks.
In another guest room, a woven side table by O’Brien for Century Furniture and oak lamp from Aero add natural texture; Haiku rug by O’Brien for Patterson Flynn.
Laura ResenThe palette becomes warmer in the studio office. Set against a backdrop of palest sea-glass green, it is furnished with upholstery in rich shades of cinnamon and mocha, a 1955 Edward Wormley coffee table, and a set of Bertoia Bird chairs. Simultaneously an homage to haute modernism and an understated nod to contemporary life, it is as much a reflection of the man behind it—shopkeeper, historian, collector, visionary—as it is a testament to trust between designer and client.
A trio of Bram Van Velde works inspired the palette of the studio office, with its mustard-colored Thomas O’Brien for Century Furniture daybed (in a Pierre Frey fabric) and curtains (in Soane Britain’s Sgrafitto).
Laura ResenTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 19 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
