Tour Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’s Art Deco Home in New York
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There’s a glamorous chaise longue smack in the middle of Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’s bathroom. With its tufting and plush white upholstery, it’s the kind of piece you’d imagine a femme fatale lounging on in a 1940s MGM picture—and in fact that was sort of its inspiration.
“You know the movie Mommie Dearest?” says Ripa, who since April 2023 has cohosted ABC’s morning show Live with Kelly and Mark with her husband, Mark Consuelos, after her more-than-two-decade run with previous cohosts. “There’s an amazing scene where Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford is lying on a white satin chaise in her dressing room, putting lotion on her elbow.” To demonstrate, she daintily raises her left elbow and, with the pointer finger of her opposite hand, mimics Dunaway’s lotion-applying gesture with the exaggerated theatricality of an old-time Hollywood diva. “I had Bill make me an identical replica of it!”
The Bill she’s referring to is AD100 Hall of Fame interior designer William Sofield, the jovial godfather of modern luxury whose clients have included Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren. Ripa and Consuelos brought on Sofield and his creative right hand and vice president at Studio Sofield, Emma O’Neill, to renovate their Upper East Side town house when they purchased it 12 years ago. At the time, Sofield warned the couple that hammered satin, while “absolutely drop-dead glam,” was not the most practical choice for upholstery, but did as the couple bid.
Thrilled about her Joan Crawford fantasy, Ripa admits she got a little carried away. Not long after moving in, she confesses, “I sat down on the chaise to apply some lotion, kind of as a joke, but when I put my leg down I basically destroyed the entire surface!” The chaise had to be recovered in a less delicate cotton silk, which remains in place today. “I learned my lesson,” says Ripa cheerfully.
Fortunately, that moment was the one pratfall in a project that, a decade after completion, has held its own. “We re-covered the kitchen stools but otherwise we have not really changed anything,” Consuelos notes. The couple famously met in the 1990s as actors on the set of All My Children. This house has witnessed their evolution from separate careers—hers as morning show host and producer (as well as other projects), his as actor and producer—to their current status as cohosts, becoming both sanctuary and stage set along the way. Over the years fans have caught glimpses of the ultra-elegant town house on Instagram—their three children Michael, Lola, and Joaquin in front of a gigantic Christmas tree, the dogs snuggled in the couple’s bed, Ripa baking cookies in the gleaming kitchen. “I’ve spent my life growing up on sets,” says Ripa. “So I like a bit of dazzle. Give me a show.”
When the couple first viewed the newly renovated five-story building, on a block of historic brick and limestone town houses, Ripa was ready to move in immediately. “I was like, ‘It’s perfect, just hand me my toothbrush.’ ” But Consuelos saw past the bright, somewhat stripped-down spaces of what he calls “essentially a spec house.” He envisioned something grander: gracious moldings, a more dramatic staircase, and practical solutions for their kids, then in their teens and tweens. “We needed a place for all the scooters, bikes, and sports equipment,” he says.
Sofield proved to be the ideal collaborator for their vision of 1920s and ’30s French glamour configured for modern family living. This balance is evident the moment you step into the foyer, where Sofield designed twin Deco-style armoires deep enough to store the family’s outdoor gear. “And we don’t wear shoes in the house,” explains Ripa. So Sofield also created a beautiful storage cabinet for shoes and guest slippers.
Many of the home’s most distinctive pieces were discovered during a memorable shopping expedition they took with Sofield to Paris. “I’m an animist,” the designer explains. “I believe objects have souls and tell stories. So I love when my clients are participants.” The trip proved fruitful: Many of the house’s stunning crystal chandeliers, decorative objets, and Art Deco furniture pieces were Paris finds.
The designer’s mastery of materials and detail is on full display in the public rooms. In the chic living room, where Sofield added picture-frame molding to the walls and finished them in hand-rubbed lacquer in three subtly different shades of beige, a painting by Gloria Vanderbilt keeps company with a cobalt blue Sèvres urn and a pair of 18th-century Aubusson tapestries. “At first we were sort of dubious on the idea of tapestries,” says Consuelos. “I was like, we’re still young people!” But Sofield found beautiful, if timeworn, examples that could be rewoven and sized perfectly for the room. “They are super groovy,” Consuelos admits now.
Their primary bedroom, meant to evoke a luxurious hotel suite, is perhaps the most seductive space of all, enrobed in tones of silvery gray from the plush wall-to-wall carpet to the wall niche hand-gilded in silver leaf. Vintage sconces, salvaged from a decommissioned ocean liner, cast a romantic glow. “It’s so nice, sometimes I will come home and lie right on the floor,” Ripa admits.
The top floor marks a deliberate departure from the house’s predominantly Deco aesthetic. Here, the media room (a.k.a. Consuelos’s cigar room, “Bar 5”) channels a more hedonistic 1970s vibe with deep blue lacquered walls, a fiber-optic cocktail table, and artwork hung salon-style. The pièce de résistance is a backlit bar nook, curtained in midnight-blue velvet with a whimsical painted cigarette motif overhead. “What’s so ironic,” notes Ripa, is that “Mark doesn’t allow cigarette smoking.”
“Because I hate the smell of cigarettes!” Consuelos avers. “By the way, we installed an amazing ventilation system,” Ripa adds. “You would never know anyone ever smoked in here.”
Now, with their youngest son, Joaquin, a senior in college, the couple has entered their empty-nesting phase. But they’ve kept the kids’ rooms almost exactly as they left them, all the more to encourage visits. And they themselves have no plans to ever leave. “I don’t want to sound morbid,” says Ripa, “but they’ll have to carry me out of here feetfirst because I have gotten good and comfortable in this house.”
This article on Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’s home appears in AD’s January issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.
Art: Jesse Alexander/Staley-Wise Gallery, New York.1/11Ripa, in a Guest in Residence sweater, Vince skirt, and Gianvito Rossi pumps, and Consuelos, wearing a Double RL sweater, Canali jeans, and Rolex watch, in the media lounge. Custom black lacquer folding screen in the manner of Eileen Gray; Francis Jourdain floor lamp from Fortuna Modernism; bespoke sleeper sofa upholstered in Dualoy leather; fiber optic cocktail table from Arts Du XX.
2/11A portiere curtain made of a Pierre Frey fabric opens to reveal the media lounge’s bar.
3/11Another view of the media lounge.
4/11In the living room, a pair of custom sofas upholstered in Brochier’s Tuul wool fabric face each other across a custom coffee table by Nancy Lorenz. A ceramic urn lamp from Fortuna Modernism stands on a bracket next to the bespoke media cabinet.
5/11A painting by Gloria Vanderbilt hangs above the living room fireplace. A pair of Bottomley chairs by Bill Sofield for Baker, upholstered in a Prelle silk and Larsen velvet, flank a 19th-century Louis XVI–style marble mantel from Barry H. Perry.
6/111950s Baguès sconces flank a bronze mirror from Annie Soffieth-Spitzer Gallery in the powder room; sink fittings by Bill Sofield for Kallista.
Art: Jesse Alexander/Staley-Wise Gallery, New York. John Opella.7/11A custom sign by Let There Be Neon glows in the daughter’s room.
8/11A pair of Warren Platner stools from Knoll stands at the foot of a bed in a son’s room.
9/11Ripa and Consuelos in their stylish NYC bathroom.
10/11A Waterworks Candide tub with Samuel Heath filler anchors the primary bath.
11/11A custom black lacquer bar cabinet in the living room.
