Amazing Grace – Designer Sandra Nunnerley

“Designer Sandra Nunnerley doesn’t decorate (or live) by rules, bringing a tasteful form-meets-function approach to her Upper East Side apartment”, writes Wendy Goodman for Departures Magazine.

The furniture in her own home, a fifth-floor Carrère & Hastings townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side is a “mix of prized pieces such as a Jacques Adnet armchair intermingled with chairs by Jean-Michel Frank and a large banquette of her own design”.

The designer’s ethos is described as “an eye toward beauty and provenance that remains firmly grounded in practicality” in the magazine article.

“Not everything has to be expensive,” said Nunnerley, who amongst other little treasures has “lots of New Zealand things” like a “pair of antique Maori hand weapons made of jade and whale bone in her Upper East Side home.

The established designer refuses to create a signature look and has “remained steadfast in her convictions”, which partially is due to advice of former Vogue fashion editor Chessy Rayner.

“Stay small, stay unique and stay high-end. You’re going to have to reinvent the wheel for each project, but I think that is where you want to be,” Rayner told her.

Sandra Nunnerley is a New Zealand-born designer, who studied architecture in Sydney and art history in London and Paris. Before opening her own studio in 1986 she worked at the Marlborough Gallery in New York, where she met future mentors and art legends Leo Castelli and Holly Solomon.

Today she is working on widely varied projects from beachfront homes in The Bahamas to Park Avenue homes.

Article Source: Departures Magazine, Wendy Goodman, October 05, 2015.

Image Source: Facebook – Sandra Nunnerley