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Great Spaces A visual journal by Design Editor Wendy Goodman. The Living Room The picture above the desk is by Alexandra Cushing Howard’s grandpa Howard Gardiner Cushing of her grandmother Ethel. The work in the far-right corner, A Young Girl From Taiwan, is by her auntie Lily Cushing. The Knole couch is from the estate of Joan Whitney Payson. The bamboo armchairs are from Secondhand Rose in New York City. Picture: Stephen Kent Johnson
Alexandra Cushing Howard and Philip Howard have been holding musical beauty parlors in the double-cube living room of their home in Gramercy Park for over 40 years.
The gatherings began at some point after the couple, who have raised 4 children since marrying in 1972, bought the three-bedroom house in the early 1980s. At a good friend’s house party, Philip and the playwright John Guare, contending over who could keep in mind more lyrics to an unknown Cole Porter tune, serenaded the crowd. The tradition carried over to Gramercy, where the other component is chicken potpie on the menu.
” Individuals come. They have supper and take turns performing,” says Philip. “It might be a vocalist from the Met or a 9-year-old from downstairs.”
Music, it turns out, is in the 1909 structure’s bones. Richard Watson Gilder, a poet and the editor of The Century, which was founded in the late 19th century, commissioned designer Herbert Lucas to design living quarters for him and 5 of his friends, all artists. Amongst them was the comic-opera singer Francis Wilson, the original of 2 previous owners of the Howards’ house. Their immediate predecessor left a grand piano.
The couple are members of prominent households with deep American roots. He is a legal representative, author, and far-off relative of Josiah Bartlett, among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and she is an architectural historian whose grandfather was the American impressionist Howard Gardiner Cushing. They moved in with little furnishings; for a while, they propped up a door on sawhorses to utilize as a table.
With the architect Richard Nash Gould, the Howards remodelled the kitchen and created an enfilade entryway hall causing the living-room. A docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 25 years, Alexandra lined the walls with the work of her grandpa, which she has been cataloguing for years, in addition to paintings by her aunt Lily, whose watercolors remain in the collections of the Whitney and the Smithsonian.
Her sister Justine Cushing, an interior designer who worked with Sister Parish, has actually touched up the area for many years while adhering to the soft colors of the initial scheme. “Justine has remodelled the apartment numerous times, as everything has actually been broken by the kids and the festivities,” states Alexandra.
Not that the nights ever get too raucous with Philip as the master of events. He runs a tight ship for the up to 40 guests who attend their supper celebrations.
” The rule is that you should be peaceful during the sets. No one can talk. We are taking the efficiencies seriously. There’s stability,” he says. “Even individuals who can’t sing discover a way to style a song.”
The Sitting Area The paintings, from left, The Harbor at Majorca, circa 1955, and Audubon Park New Orleans, circa 1958, are by Lily Cushing. The Knole couch belonged to Alexandra’s grandfather and was reupholstered by Rosenfeld Interiors with Brunschwig & Fils material. Picture: Stephen Kent Johnson 
The Dining Room The table is from Isabel O’Neil Studio. The chairs were upholstered in Brunschwig & Fils by Rosenfeld Interiors. Picture: Stephen Kent Johnson
The Screen The painted panel of architectural kinds is by Parker Zaner Bloser, a household buddy. Above it is a 1916 study by Gardiner Cushing for a mural entitled Royaume Sous Marin planned for the indoor swimming pool at the 50 East 70th Street estate of the early-20th-century lender George Blumenthal. Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson
The Main Bed room The paintings above the mantel are by Gardiner Cushing. The mirror is from his 1867 home in Newport. The drapes are by Alexandra’s sibling Justine and Robert Rosenfeld of Rosenfeld Interiors. Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson 
The Entrance Hall The space was opened up by designer Richard Nash Gould, who was employed by Cushing Howard and her hubby Philip to remodel the house. “He had the concept of altering the circulation and made the corridor into a telescope,” Philip Howard says. Image: Stephen Kent Johnson
The Mural Alexandra before one of 2 recreations of the 1911 Gardiner Cushing staircase mural commissioned by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney for her Old Westbury Studio. Image: Stephen Kent Johnson
The Portrait Gardiner Cushing’s mural included this work, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in a Bakst Outfit With Fleurs de Mal, from 1911-12. Image: Courtesy of the topics
< img data-src =" https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/8b3/049/0b8c7de29e9730f69c509b62aa7986141a-DSC-4416.rvertical.w570.jpg" width =" 570" height =" 712" src =" https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/8b3/049/0b8c7de29e9730f69c509b62aa7986141a-DSC-4416.rvertical.w570.jpg"/ > A portrait of Gardiner Cushing. Photo 
: Thanks to the subjects< img data-src="https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/5b7/802/ed633c4f2e25a8a37b0b3ba308b95b531d-DSC-4409.rhorizontal.w700.jpg" width="700" height="467" src="https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/5b7/802/ed633c4f2e25a8a37b0b3ba308b95b531d-DSC-4409.rhorizontal.w700.jpg"/ > Gardiner Cushing in his studio in 1915. Photo: Thanks to the subjects
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