In 1991, FREDERIC’s own Dara Caponigro—then an editor at House Beautiful magazine— visited an up-and-coming young design-world couple, decorator Katie Ridder and architect Peter Pennoyer, for a feature on their first shared home on New York’s Upper West Side. More than 35 years later, the pair has reached revered status in their respective industries, but how they approach their own living space—“a lab for experiments,” wrote the magazine—hasn’t changed.
We asked Ridder to take us on a decades-spanning tour of the elegantly eclectic family homes where she and Pennoyer made their own distinctive marks.
Ridder and Pennoyer with their two miniature dachshunds, Charlie and Tam-Tam, in 1991.
Antoine Bootz
Upper West Side
1991
As newlyweds, Peter and I found an apartment on the Upper West Side that faced an empty lot with trees, birds, and full southern light in every room. When we met, I lived in a bright, colorful, cheery apartment while Peter’s place was a bit gloomy. In an early act of shedding the privileges of bachelorhood, he conceded that his dark palette would be a thing of the past. Our first compromise was to paint one bright blue wall in our white living room, upon which we hung every one of Peter’s prints, photographs, and drawings. He even squeezed in his 10-foot-long Baths of Diocletian etching that our man-with-a-van mover couldn’t handle, forcing us to march it across the Upper East Side and through Central Park.
At the time, I had left my job as an editor at House & Garden and opened a Turkish-themed home store on Lexington Avenue. I’d rotate stock through our apartment, adding to the mix my own furniture and Peter’s Biedermeier pieces. We loved our eclectic nest, and every morning I put our two miniature dachshunds, Charlie and Tam-Tam, into the basket of my bicycle and pedaled across the park to my store.
Bronxville
1997
Eventually, I gave up my store and turned to decorating. By then, Peter and I had two children, and we’d come to the same conclusion: It was time to move out of the city. Bronxville, New York, was the closest town on the train line and had charming houses, many of which had belonged to families in the movie and theater worlds and had a Hollywood flair condensed to compact suburban scale. Our Mediterranean house, which we discovered on the back of a supermarket flyer, had been built by a film producer in the late 1920s. The solarium, which had a fountain and leaded-glass windows, became our dining room; the living room, with its French doors facing a wisteria-laden pergola, felt like a salon in a garden. We loved living in our corner of an imaginary Tuscan hill town, but the hill became the hard part, and one winter day we watched our parked car slide backwards down a driveway too steep to make any sense.
Bronxville Village
2008
After 11 years we yearned for more space, so we found a bigger place in the village proper, where the school was just a short walk down the street. Our house was designed in the 1920s by a gifted local architect, Lewis Bowman. It appeared as a simple Queen Anne concoction on the outside, but within, Bowman tucked an array of special rooms on six levels. The living room reflected my taste in decorating with no compromises, its scheme of browns and blues anchored by a tall Julian Schnabel print. (I had finally opened Peter’s eyes to the potential of 20th-century art.) We turned a large space above the garage into the kids’ hangout room and went full casbah (or thrift shop?). Dubbed the “Zam-Zam Room,” this became a popular spot for kids’ parties—some authorized, some not.
Millbrook
2015
Peter and I shared an old, shingled summer house in Massachusetts with his family, but felt that we needed a place of our own to escape year-round. We found land in Millbrook, New York, and over three-plus years, made our own house. The ground rules were simple: I was in charge of interiors and Peter oversaw the architecture. He let me do my thing and even declined to offer an opinion on the fabrics for our pink living room, although he did introduce a few antiques and more than a few busts. (The only piece I rejected was Peter’s fourth Abraham Lincoln bust, which he happily removed to his office.) My colors and patterns and his sober collections came together in a way that pleased us both.
Upper East Side
2025
As soon as our youngest graduated from high school, we jumped back to New York City. My decorating business was flourishing, and I was expanding my fabric and wallpaper lines. The first place we found was cramped and had only north light; the second, which we consider our “forever apartment,” is in a 1910 building with a creaky manual elevator. The buyer of the previous apartment bought all our furniture—even the beds!—which gave me the perfect excuse to start from scratch. Another pink living room became the perfect backdrop for antiques we bought from our friend Angus Wilkie, including a fanciful 1820s Viennese étagère. In the silver-wallpapered dining room, I added decorative stenciled bands at the chair rail and cornice. For the portieres at the entrance to the living room I created a new fabric, inspired by a 1960s paisley, with our daughter Gigi’s name in the pattern.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 20 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
