American Psycho is in the air these days. The movie, based on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel about a homicidal Wall Street banker with exceptional taste, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and its protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is staging an unexpected comeback. There’s a Luca Guadagnino remake in the works, a New York City bar called Bateman’s, and even a new perfume named American Psycho.
For designer Michael Ellison, Bateman’s aesthetic was the unlikely inspiration for his latest project: a New York City loft for a longtime client. Where Bateman’s Upper West Side apartment was cold chrome and white walls, this loft is darker, moodier, and deliberately provocative. “To be honest, the presentation we put together for it was a little devious,” Ellison admits.
The project is hardly a murder den. It’s a pied-à-terre for a businessman from Connecticut who, like Ellison, had always loved the louche atmosphere of American Psycho. He gave Ellison carte blanche. “He wanted something that would start a conversation,” Ellison says.
Ellison launched his firm three years ago after serving as design director at Workshop/APD. He had already created a traditional Nantucket house for the same client. “It was 50 shades of white, cream, greige and blue,” the designer says. This time, the brief was very different.
The client asked Ellison to help find an apartment in New York to use when he was on business there. They looked at many options but kept on coming back to a loft in a former artist’s building in Soho, drawn to its soaring tin ceilings and steel columns.
The primary bedroom.
Ellison’s first bold move was to add a custom steel “fence” dividing the entry from the main living space. “It was very specific and intentional,” he says. “You can have a moment to take off your shoes and still see the rest of the apartment.”
Inside, he leaned into darkness. A living room wall is coated in a textured black, like “an abyss,” he says, and oxblood wool curtains frame the windows. A vintage De Sede Snake sofa curves across the floor, a swinging chaise drops from the ceiling, and Vik Muniz’s Amore and Psyche anchors a gallery wall. In the dining area, a Wayne Pate piece from Armature Projects hangs from chains. “I wanted everything to feel a little dangerous,” Ellison says.
Designer Michael Ellison.
Architectural changes were minimal. Ellison replaced squeaky floors, refreshed the lighting with Apparatus and Galerie Philia fixtures, and added a Noguchi paper globe. The kitchen now centers on a waterfall island in Arebescato Orobico marble, with cabinetry painted Benjamin Moore’s Black Beauty.
For the client, the loft signals an adventurous new chapter. For Ellison, it shows that even Bateman’s darkness can be recast as chic.
