The Abridged Version
Photo: Peter Murdock
The first time he saw this apartment near Manhattan's South Street Seaport, Jeffery Povero was underwhelmed. It was part of a 1914 hospital building that had been converted to condos in the 1980s. The space, he says, like many in the city, was a blandly modern box with parquet floors and "Navajo white" walls. It had, he says, "a vague nonstyle."
Vague wouldn't do for Povero, a Yale-trained architect who worked for Robert A.M. Stern for ten years before opening his own firm, Povero & Company. If Stern had taught him anything, it was how to create architectural drama, and Povero was determined to play to the apartment's strengths, which included 11-foot ceilings and views of both the seaport and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Unfortunately, a wall enclosing the kitchen blocked some of the most striking vistas. That wall would have to go, Povero realized, which meant that the kitchen, now on view, would have to be upgraded. "It just snowballed," said Povero of the project. Pretty soon he was gutting the entire 860-square-foot apartment, which he shares with Jeffrey Schneider, a network news executive.
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