Light Fantastic
Lee Broom’s penthouse in New York draws inspiration from the city skyline while offering the British designer a space to entertain and unwind in
British designer
Lee Broom’s New York penthouse is the perfect showcase for his iconic designs
“I want the apartment to conjure up a sense of pleasure and a feeling of escapism. That’s definitely something we’re all desperately craving right now”
Award-winning designer Lee Broom has always thought outside the box. Whether it’s presenting a collection from the back of a delivery van in Milan, filling an underground car park with over a hundred of his lights in Sydney, or making a movie featuring an orchestra to launch his Maestro chairs at last year’s London Design Festival, his past shows are known for their theatrical touches.
That creativity certainly came in handy recently, as pandemic restrictions forced the British designer to complete his penthouse in New York from the other side of the Atlantic. “I thought it would be impossible to do,” recalls Broom via Zoom from his converted fire-station home in London. “Then you’re put in this kind of situation where you have no choice, you just have to work in a different way.”
Working with his visualiser, Broom rendered every single item so his team in New York knew exactly where everything had to go. Through a combination of Zoom chats, and photos and videos sent over Whatsapp, he was able to fine tune the exact location of each piece. “In many ways it felt as if I was there,” he recalls. “It was quite bizarre, especially as the time difference meant I was working in the middle of the night. One morning I woke up and felt like I had actually been in the apartment.”
URBAN OASIS
It certainly wasn’t what Broom envisaged when he decided to find a place to live in the Big Apple. His namesake brand is sold in over fifty countries and has a dozen dealers stateside; it’s available in Singapore at Space Furniture. He counts Beyoncé as one of his American clients, after she featured the Lee Broom Hanging Hoop chair in her 2020 film Black Is King, so the 45-year-designer was looking for somewhere to call home during his ever-increasing work trips.
“I was just tired of staying in hotels, the reality is I really wanted to feel like I could retreat to my own space,” says the former fashion student and protégé of Vivienne Westwood, who has been in love with the city since his first visit back in the mid-nineties.