The apartment speaks in a distinctly Parisian register—restrained, cultivated, and quietly assured. Its owner, whose primary residence is in Paris, brought with her an instinct for understatement: an effortless interplay of refinement and ease, where luxury is softened by intimacy and rooms feel composed rather than decorated. For designer Todd Haley, whose understated approach to glamour is defined by nuance over spectacle, the connection was immediate. At their first meeting, Haley recognized a familiar language in his client’s brief: an elegant tension between antique and modern, elevated and everyday, investment pieces layered with the unexpected.
Rather than impose excess, Haley leaned into atmosphere, crafting interiors that feel quietly seductive and entirely unforced—spaces that whisper rather than announce, balancing polish with personality. The collaboration proved so instinctively aligned that the commission soon expanded beyond Chicago, leading Haley to reimagine the client’s primary residence in Paris, where the same cultivated sensibility could unfold on an even more intimate scale.
The entry console draws quietly from the spirit of Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre in Paris—its industrial rigor and luminous grid reinterpreted through a steel subway grate topped in wire glass, transforming an everyday material into something unexpectedly refined.
For all the apartment’s polish, there remains room for the beautifully utilitarian: a galvanized steel feeding trough, weathered with time and softened by use. Repurposed to hold firewood, its dents and imperfections lend an ease to the interiors—a reminder that refinement is often most compelling when tempered by character.
The lacquered, onyx-black den offers a knowing nod to the French fumoir—the intimate post-dinner salons once reserved for quiet indulgence and conversation. Moody and enveloping, the space channels a distinctly Parisian sense of ritual, where elegance is found as much in atmosphere as in design.
“Working with Todd felt less like hiring a designer and more like being guided by a courtier—someone with an instinctive understanding of taste, proportion, and ritual. He has a rare ability to orchestrate beauty with discretion, sourcing, editing, and composing a space with a cultivated ease that feels at once deeply personal and quietly refined. It felt only natural to then entrust him with designing my home in Paris.”