Inside a Manhattan Home Built on Mid-Century Furniture Icons

For Chris Mitchell, discovering Scandinavian design was a life-changing moment. Since then, the former magazine executive has set out to surround himself with exquisite mid-century pieces. 

The magazine executive-turned-design guru has just given me a tour of his newly renovated Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, the rooms of which are laden with museum-quality furniture and objects, running the gamut from iconic to obscure, that certainly attest to his passion. But, as interiors aficionados might expect, the apartment that Mitchell shares with his wife, the editor Pilar Guzman, is nothing like a chilly museum (not even the grand Metropolitan around the corner) – not overly fussy, not chock-a-block.

The blonde wood floors and walls, the vintage pieces in sumptuous leathers, the thoughtfully illuminated cases are instead vivid, real-world expressions of ‘Patina Modern,’ the couple’s blueprint for design (and perhaps life) articulated in their 2022 book of the same name. A vision full of warmth and purpose, put together with the finest ingredients (the very best of Scandinavian modernism, for example), which are then properly used as intended and so allowed to develop the perfect patina of time. “Mid-century furniture,” as Mitchell described it in the book, “rendered in a limited palette of materials like white oak, aged brass, and bridle leather,” which, as they age, “become richer, mellower, burnished.”

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Mitchell, 56, who grew up outside of Chicago, says he gained an interest in design early in life – “probably inspired,” he says, “by the worlds Ralph Lauren created.” Mitchell’s father worked in advertising, so there were always magazines lying around the house, and it was an interiors column in Esquire that sparked his interest in New York apartments. “My idea of a sophisticated adult home was a loft or a modern high rise in New York,” he says, “filled with leather and chrome modernist furniture. I’m not even sure I knew who Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe were then, but that was the vibe I wanted.”

After studying literature at Berkeley, Mitchell came east, got a masters in publishing at NYU, and worked with Condé Nast for a generation, rising to become the chief business officer for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and GQ. He describes meeting and moving in with Guzman when they were in their late twenties, along with discovering Scandinavian design at the time, as Damascene moments in his life, lighting his future path forward.

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In collecting terms, instead of following trends, Mitchell has allowed his curiosity to lead him further into his passion. “Seeing a Finn Juhl 45 chair for the first time blew my mind,” he says. “The craftsmanship, the warm-yet- modern combination – it was simply the most beautiful thing I’d seen. I didn’t know furniture could be that sculptural and chic, yet minimal.” This revelation, in about 1998, led Mitchell into a process of self-education, he says, assisted by some great dealers he met along the way.

“I fell for Hans Wegner Wishbone chairs before they became ubiquitous,” he says, “and Arne Jacobsen Egg chairs with that amazing patina of caramel leather, as well as Kaare Klint’s upholstered sofas, Poul Kjaerholm’s daybeds, and, my all-time favorite, the Borge Mogensen Spanish chair, with its saddle leather sling seat and wide oak armrests. I’ve bought more than 30 of these over the years but lost a lot of them when we sold our houses furnished.”

Mitchell, Guzman, and their family only recently relocated to the Upper East Side, after a full-scale renovation of the apartment and the sale of the beloved Brooklyn brownstone where their children were raised. But it’s already very much a home, furnished with Mitchell’s favorite pieces, and beginning to mushroom with his latest interests. “We’ve done a lot of house projects for ourselves in the past 8-10 years,” he says, “so I’ve had occasion to bring in a lot of new pieces. But I’ve also turned to smaller objects that are easier to find space for,” he says, showing me marvels by the Austrian designer Carl Auböck, and spectacular Dansk tableware. “My favorites,” he says, “are the brass vases and decanters by Pierre Forssell for the Swedish company Skultuna. His pieces are all 1970s designs; they have a swingy vibe but are also so well made, which makes them feel permanent and classic.”