'Old-lady chic' isn’t the first thing you’d expect Chicago-born, Milan-based designer Eric Egan to say about his style. After all, he has created inherently glamorous, elevated and storied interiors for the likes of Mandarin Oriental in its hotel on the shores of Lake Como, and Belmond hotels in Venice and on the Amalfi Coast.
Yet it’s a thread that runs through his own one-bedroom, two-bathroom 19th-century apartment on Piazza Castello. It features windows swathed in Fortuny curtains and quirky porcelain dogs, but blended with 'a more modern, masculine, New York-style “alter ego”,' says Eric.
Located in his 'favorite and most sought-after piazza in all of Milan', opposite the 15th-century Castello Sforzesco and verdant Parco Sempione, the property has been Eric’s home for 20 years. He shares it with his husband Diego Cuña, also an interior designer, and their dog Camilla. He originally found it when he spotted it was available to rent while zipping past on a scooter. 'No one ever moves out of Piazza Castello, so I took it despite its terrible layout,' says Eric. 'It was a good size, around 100 square meters, so I knew I could do something with it.'
Most of the space was used for a living room and lobby, with two tiny bedrooms, so Eric tore down the interior partitions to transform the 'glorified hallway'. He took the windows running down one side as his cue to create an enfilade of rooms, defined by arched openings, from the entrance hall and past a powder room, compact kitchen and library, through to the sitting room. Here he lowered the ceilings to three meters to make it feel more intimate, but also to conceal an air-conditioning system. 'I’m American; I wanted it to be fingertip cold in the house!' he says.
After the pandemic, the designer was inspired to undertake a major refresh of the interior in line with the beginning of a new phase in his life. He envisaged what the Milanese pied-à-terre of his stylish, jet-setting, adventurous, 65-year-old future self might look like. He pulled together a presentation for himself as if he was the client. 'Decorators’ houses risk looking like the greatest hits of their previous projects, so I limited myself to three ideas, not 300,' he says.
The panel of stainless steel positioned in the middle of the long sitting-room wall – inspired by his design hero, French decorator François Catroux – provides a focal point that breaks up the wraparound Haiku wall mural that Eric designed with Fromental. Inspired by traditional Japanese screens from the Momoyama period, the wallpaper is edged with a Venetian marbled print in the same way that kimono fabric would have been used as a border for the 16th-century screens.
The furniture and art filling each space have been collected over time. Dead-stock rolls of vintage fabrics were used for curtains, cushions and upholstery. 'I’m really lazy,' says Eric. 'I don’t do showrooms; I just find things sitting around at the upholsterers and say, “Let’s do this one”. An Empire-style headboard and a minibar used as a refrigerator for fragrances were 'salvaged from an old hotel project, otherwise headed for the trash'.
In the kitchen, simple IKEA cabinets have been elevated with lacquer and stainless-steel fronts and a deep, purple marble worktop: 'It had to be lifted in with a crane. That was not a good day,' says Eric. Polished plaster ceilings and gilded frames by Florentine artisan Giovanni Baccani sit alongside '1980s New York' elements – ebonized-wood floors and stainless steel – inspired by the way designers like Philippe Starck and Andrée Putman 'played with glossy black lacquer and tubular steel at the time'. Mirrored walls add glitz and boost 'views' around the apartment.
Finally, Eric styled each space with eclectic auction finds, such as photographs by Francesco Scavullo and Robert Mapplethorpe, and vintage suitcases ('they give my restless spirit the feeling I can leave any time.') It’s the perfect space for a designer who is often on the road: 'I wanted it to feel calm, with proportions that were generous, not mean,' Eric says. 'It’s a very comfortable, but private, place to come home to. It has everything I need, and nothing more.'
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