ESCAPING BROOKLYN

TO hear Elizabeth Sayner tell it, Brooklyn isn’t just a borough. It’s a design aesthetic, like midcentury modern or Beaux-Arts. “It’s the clear-glass Edison light bulb,” she said. “The farm table, the salvaged materials like reclaimed-wood-from-the-bowlingalley-that-turns-into-the-bookshelf, and old industrial lamps from the machine age.”

After a while, she continued, “so many people wanted that ‘artifacts’ look, to make something feel local and authentic, it began to feel overly staged.”

So although Sayner, 38, and her husband, Roman Arzhintar, 39, had bought a loft in what some might consider the epicenter of the borough — Williamsburg — she was determined that, in aesthetic at least, it should be as far from Brooklyn as possible. Group, the firm known for creating spaces like Nobu and the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, home of the Academy Awards. So she acted as the interior designer.

Arzhintar was more of a numbers guy, who had been a founder of SideReel, a website that compiled data on TV shows, and who now works for Rovi, the company that acquired it. He played the role of the budget-conscious client.

Asked what she learnt from her time at the Rockwell Group, Sayner answered without hesitation: “Lighting.”

David Rockwell, the company’s founder, used the phrase “Barbara Walters lighting” to refer to “soft lighting that makes people look glowing,” she said. “Lighting creates mood, it makes you feel better, it adds drama, it can define the space.”

She also learned about the importance of “choreography and movement,” she said, and “those little anchors and monuments that start to define the space”.

She began by establishing the first anchor in their new space: the dining area. And she outfitted it with a Twist oval table from Formstelle, six Patricia Urquiola molded plastic chairs and a Jasper Morrison Smithfield suspension lamp.

Moving on to anchor No. 2, the living area, she picked out a Flexform Soft Dream sofa by Antonio Citterio, which Arzhintar had long coveted, and the Raimond light from Moooi, an LED fixture that glows like a cluster of warm, white stars.

Then they went looking for a rug. They found an antique Berber they liked in Manhattan, but when Arzhintar learnt it was US$7,000, he told the salesman, “We might as well go to Morocco, where surely they are cheaper, and get a vacation out of it.” Which they did, returning with a rug that cost just US$1,200.

By and large, they managed to stay away from the Brooklyn look. But it turns out to be so ubiquitous that it is almost impossible to avoid altogether.

Edison light bulbs make an appearance in the entry hall and the master bedroom.

And there are two examples of taxidermy: a jackalope (a hare with antlers) hangs on a kitchen wall and a stuffed grey rabbit sits on a table in the bedroom.

But there’s an explanation for at least one of those pieces, Sayner said, laughing. “Roman calls me bunny.”

They’ve been married for only five months, after all. They’re still in that moony stage of love.