A West Village Tenement That Looks Like a Victorian Mansion

"In 1998, Brian Coleman and his partner bought a teensy former tenement apartment on West 10th Street - an ideal pied-à-terre for a couple from Seattle looking for a place to throw down their suitcases. At least, that was the plan. Coleman ended up spending a decade and thousands of dollars stripping paint, sourcing antiques, and wallpapering or trompe l'oeil-ing every square inch. "You'd think with a small 350-square-foot space, How much can you get in?" says Coleman, who is now selling after nearly 30 years. "But there's a lot you can do with it.""

"The building dates to the 1880s, when the upper crust was embracing the Victorian aesthetic movement with its maximalist parlors stuffed with spindly furnishings, gilt frames, and pattern-on-pattern-on-pattern. In the living room, Coleman added gold paint to an original marble fireplace, stained wood floors a deeper shade of brown, and took modern glass out of the window frames in favor of wavy antique panes. Crown moldings were painted a deep green, and so was wainscoting, designed to frame panels of 1890s linoleum."

"At auction, he bought a pair of gold silk curtains that had been shown at the Japanese pavilion of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, then moved to one of Teddy Roosevelt's offices, and flew in his favorite draper to fit them perfectly. Then there's the ceiling, where a trompe l'oeil painter put in a pattern of sunbursts modeled after a Minton tile. On a corner of a built-in settee just off the fireplace, Coleman asked for painted grotesques, modeled after some he had spotted in a British sanatorium, then added a realistic painting of a mouse-size mouse eating a few crumbs of pizza."

""The main thing was to make it fun and whimsical," says Coleman. "I am a firm believer in Victorian excess." A psychiatrist by profession, Coleman spent the 1990s immersed in splendorous antiques as he slowly turned his 1906 Arts and Crafts-style home in Seattle in"

In 1998, a couple bought a former tenement apartment on West 10th Street as a small pied-à-terre. The plan expanded into a decade-long renovation involving thousands of dollars spent stripping paint, sourcing antiques, and covering every surface with wallpaper, trompe l'oeil, and decorative finishes. The 1880s building’s Victorian character guided the work, including gold paint on a marble fireplace, deeper brown stained wood floors, and wavy antique window panes. Crown moldings and wainscoting were painted deep green, with 1890s linoleum framed in paneling. Gold silk curtains tied to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair were fitted precisely, and the ceiling received sunburst trompe l'oeil modeled after a Minton tile. Painted grotesques and a realistic mouse-size mouse eating pizza crumbs added playful detail.

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