Acclaimed Brazilian decorator Andre Mellone meticulously crafted a reflection of himself and his husband in a light-filled Chelsea apartment. A Designer’s Manhattan Duplex Where a Global Perspective Underscores the Sense of Home.

Although Andre Mellone is a world-famous designer with a trademark eye, at home he makes a point of incorporating his husband’s taste with his own. “We wanted to express a certain masculinity,” he says of the scheme for their Chelsea apartment. “We’re obviously two guys living together and we’re pretty much attracted to the same things—half of it was mine and half of it was his, we share an aesthetic.”

A built-in bookcase, along a wall near the apartment’s entrance, painted in Benjamin Moore Midnight Oil, holds part of the couple’s art-book collection and a pink crystal—a gift from a friend who believes they’re key to a good love life. The Mies van der Rohe bench sits next to an Asian granite stone that was used to crush wheat.

Mellone admits that the apartment’s current design is his second attempt, having outgrown the first iteration, which he describes as “a bit naive.” Looking back, he says, “it was a little softer, like I was just trying to copy my aunt’s house in Brazil.” To emphasize a sense of masculinity, the couple filled the aerie with large agrarian stone pieces from Asia—a big ironwood pedestal, granite troughs—“things that show material and strength.”Too often, he laments, people will forget about the size of objects in relation to their space. The gray-flannel sofas that flank his tall but compact living room, for example, are actually quite modest in size, but they fit in perfectly.