When Todd Hellmuth’s client, an entrepreneur, investor, and contemporary art collector, moved back to New York City from San Francisco almost five years ago, he knew exactly where he wanted to live—a prewar co-op on lower Fifth Avenue. He also knew exactly who he wanted to decorate it—Hellmuth, his longtime friend and one-time roommate.

It’s not standard practice to hire a designer once lived with, but in this case at least, it certainly didn’t hurt. The New York interior designer knew his client’s taste almost as well as his own. Not to mention that the perfect one-bedroom apartment said client snapped up in a 1928 Rosario Candela-designed building was a serious step up from their former West Village walk-up where they once got egged for being too noisy. 

In terms of the overall vibe, Hellmuth notes, his client wanted to create a dialogue between the apartment’s prewar architecture and his collection of contemporary art and midcentury furniture. “This is embarrassing,” he says, “but we started with a Pinterest board.” It wasn’t rocket science though. Hellmuth knew his client, from the way he lived to the way he dressed, and understood the sort of low-key, collected-over-time look he was going for.