Although the move didn’t cover a huge physical distance—just a short journey across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey and down to New York City’s Upper East Side—its emotional span was much greater. Erika Jones and her two daughters, Gigi and Valentina, weren’t only changing residences but also making a fresh start in their family life as an independent threesome.

Jones, a real estate developer who focuses on affordable housing, had been checking out apartments up and down Park and Lexington avenues, wanting their home base to be within walking distance of the girls’ school; when she came across a high-floor unit on Fifth Avenue instead, overlooking Central Park in a prewar building not far from Museum Mile, the other choices paled in comparison. The place was far from perfect: It had been cobbled together from two smaller apartments in less-than-ideal fashion by a previous owner, resulting in a hodgepodge of awkward ceiling soffits, irregular bump-outs in walls, and wood floors whose decorative borders no longer matched the geometry of the rooms they were in. However, Jones recalls, “At the time there was limited inventory, so I understood that I was going to have to create for myself the space I wanted to live in.”

She turned to the AD100 list to track down a partner for the work, and was immediately drawn to AD PRO Directory designer Corey Damen Jenkins, both for his maximalist aesthetic and his personal narrative. “I loved how he bootstrapped himself in Detroit,” Jones says, “and then moved to the big city of New York and was able to be successful here too.” She saw in his experiences a kinship with what she refers to as her own “phoenix-rising story in progress.”

Initial plans for the family’s new quarters only included renovating the kitchen and bathrooms, along with some cosmetic upgrades. But then, as design meetings got underway, Jenkins suggested that Jones take advantage of the opportunity to create the apartment of her dreams. “I looked myself in the mirror,” she reports, “and said, ‘You know, if I’m not going to live how I want to live now, when am I going to do it? What am I waiting for?’” She decided it was time to go all-in, and the designer and client embarked together on a total makeover.

Eighteen months later, the condo had been utterly transformed into a vibrant, elegant, unapologetically feminine realm of layered patterns and sometimes audacious color choices. An entry hall with green chinoiserie walls beneath a ceiling of glittering hexagonal mirrored tiles leads to a dining room that is coated in a high-gloss lacquer—the velvety purple hue of a blueberry panna cotta. Jones’s love affair with de Gournay and Gracie mural papers is evident in almost every room. The kitchen—countertops, backsplash, range hood, open shelves, and all—is sheathed in a luscious Calacatta viola marble, with glittering brass hardware and fixtures added as jewelry.

Jenkins and his firm completely reworked the interior architecture. Rooms were reconfigured. Arched doorways, fluted pilasters, and coffered ceilings—which occasionally conceal structural beams that couldn’t be moved—now adorn the public spaces, entirely in keeping with the kind of Beaux Arts detailing that the building’s original architect deployed in its grand foyer downstairs. New herringbone floors were also laid, which now definitely fit the spaces they’re part of.

The spectacular living room is proof of just how well Jones and Jenkins vibed with their shared vision. Until a fairly late stage in the project, the emerald silk grass cloth that ended up on the ceiling was meant to go on the walls. Jones, though, really desired a bolder look. So, late one night, she texted Jenkins an image of Gracie’s Kano Garden wall covering—which led to a phone call, which led to a revised scheme involving custom colors to match the furniture that was already on order. “Unlike other clients, who want to be a bit more conservative, she pushed me further, which was a lot of fun,” Jenkins says. “And it became one of the most dynamic rooms in the house as a result.” The lesson? “Even at the 11th hour, you can still make pivots,” he concludes, “and you should never settle for less.”

“Settling for less” is not a thought that would come to mind when anyone sees this home today, chock-full as it is of what Jenkins terms “cultured, worldly, gathered, curated” furnishings, objects, and works of art. It has been thoroughly, and meticulously, reinvented as the perfect backdrop for a mother and her two daughters setting out on their New York adventure.