When real-estate developer Mark Moskowitz and his partner, filmmaker Yuval Hadadi, decided to move out of their Flatiron apartment in 2020, they didn’t intend to go very far. “We lived in the neighborhood for the past 21 years,” Moskowitz says, “so we knew the neighborhood and wanted to stay in it.” Plus, one of Moskowitz’s latest projects, a nearly completed new condo at 64 University Place, was just getting underway nearby at the time.
They also wanted an outdoor space, a dedicated guest room and bath, and an office, all in “a very low-key sort of building,” says Moskowitz. “No doorman, something very understated.” Finding a loft with those requisites turned out to be the easy part; it was the first place they saw on the recommendation of a friend.
The gut renovation, however took a bit longer than they’d hoped. Nine months after buying, the pandemic hit, spurring a series of delays: The crew often got sick, deliveries were late, and lockdown rules prevented access to workspaces and shops.
Preserving the classic loft-design aesthetic while also adding their own tastes presented an entirely different challenge. “Our mission was to maintain the authenticity of the loft while at the same time updating it and making it brighter,” Moskowitz says. “And that was a fine line sometimes.”
Their biggest move was opening the enclosed staircase leading to the roof garden, then covering it with terrazzo tile. “Terrazzo reads luxury in Italian design,” Hadadi says, “and yet I grew up with it in my parent’s house because it was a very basic, utilitarian material.” On the roof, they wanted to avoid against anything too manicured. “One of our inspirations was the landscape design of the High Line,” he says.
With the help of the architecture firm Shop/APD, “we changed the stairway, the kitchen floors, the walls, we changed the windows,” Hadadi tells me. After that was done, they enlisted “the brilliant eye” of their longtime friend, the creative director and interior designer Alfredo Paredes. Paredes, who for 33 years until 2018 was the executive vice-president and chief creative officer of Ralph Lauren, says he merely offered finishing touches: “By the time I got involved in this project, it was about selecting surfaces and directing them on upholstery and rugs and colors and how to tie it all together.”
The loft has been decorated with the couple’s art including work from Leon Polk Smith, Steven Klein, Mosh Kashi, and Naomi Mendel. Much of their furniture has been refinished from their pre-existing collection such as a Willy Guhl chair that Hadadi recalls from childhood: “Where I grew up outside Tel Aviv, there was a club with a public pool and a small lawn, and all these chairs were scattered there,” he says. “That is something very subjective in my memory that I wanted to have here.”
Other pieces were designed especially for them by Paredes and his team, including the dining table and chairs and the kitchen banquette seating area. Collaboration comes naturally for these old friends, who also co-owned a cottage on Captain Jack’s Wharf in Provincetown (published by this magazine in 2014). Though this time around, Paredes also took on some added responsibilities: “I really felt like more of a marriage counselor,” he says with a laugh, “which was okay.”
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