Shades of Color

Stepping off the elevator directly into the New York penthouse of Jane Hertzmark Hudis and Dr. Clifford Hudis, you can't help but reflexively take off your shoes.

Clearly the city's grit and grime have no place in this pristine Upper East Side home, which bears the minimalist stamp of its designer, architect Lee F. Mindel of the Manhattan firm Shelton, Mindel & Associates. In stocking feet, you immediately and viscerally–experience the luxuriousness of the pale-hued apartment, whose fine, thin carpets act as bafflingly plush landing pads. It's as though you're walking both on the clouds and among them.

Jane, the global brand president of Estée Lauder, and her husband, a renowned physician, knew that sumptuous rugs would be a critical element in their home long before they hired Mindel to renovate and decorate it. "The notion that the floor is as vital to a space as anything else was part of my upbringing," says the cosmetics executive, whose mother, Ellen Hertzmark, has worked at the bespoke rug company V'Soske for decades. "She has collaborated with all the top architects in the world. That she would do the rugs was a given." It was Hertzmark who introduced the couple to Mindel, one of her close friends, and the two conceived the apartment's many matching wool-and-silk carpets, which are woven in a subtle grid pattern to echo the streets below.

Mindel was struck by the city views when he first toured the two-bedroom residence, located on the 12th floor of a new building and boasting a pair of breathtaking terraces. Inspired by moody skies and the rooftops and façades of the surrounding buildings, he envisioned the interiors as an abstract panorama of grays. Today that subdued neutral palette—it can almost read as mauve or the softest blue depending on the light—extends into every room and corridor. "Lee designed the apartment as one continuous gesture," Jane says. "I love how the pale tones are referential to the world outside. Just please don't title this article '50 Shades of Gray'!"