Christine and John Gachot
Downtown denizens and co-founders of New York-based design firm Gachot Studios, husband and wife Christine and John Gachot moved uptown to a ‘classic seven’ in 2023, prompting a fresh perspective on city living.
Hugging the East River and stretching merely six blocks in length by one block deep, Sutton Place is an intimate neighbourhood tacked onto the southern edge of the Upper East Side. To wander along its small grid of streets in the early morning or late afternoon is to snatch a rare moment of calm in New York City.
For Christine and John Gachot, who met at William Sofield’s studio in the 1990s before coming together as Gachot Studios in 2012, moving their family to a pre-war apartment in Sutton Place was an unexpected choice. They had raised their two sons, Boris and Jack, in a loft around the corner from their Soho studio, before living in Paul Rudolph’s Beekman Place penthouse – an eccentric, modernist dwelling with few internal walls, lots of glass and sweeping views of the East River.
“We’ve historically always lived in open-plan spaces,” says Christine. “The loft on Bond Street and Beekman Place were both very open, but as our sons grew older, we were attracted to a closed door – you have a lot of people walking around in their underwear!”
Swapping Downtown’s energy for Uptown’s somewhat sleepier mood was an adjustment. Though merely a taxi ride away, the disparity between life above and below 23rd Street is substantial. “Our sons were very hesitant – you’d think we were moving to Upstate New York,” jokes Christine. Boris and Jack have both since flown the coop, moving back downtown, but they came to embrace Sutton Place. “They loved the fact that we have a kitchen table and that they could close the door and have privacy and their own spaces.”
A ‘classic seven’ refers to a pre-1940s apartment with a living room, formal dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms and what was once considered a maid’s room. The Gachots’ has a wood-burning fireplace – a huge drawcard for the entire family – and a meandering floor plan defined by its delineated rooms. Pre-war features like decorative architraves, double-hung windows and original timber floorboards give the home its notable heritage character, and the scale is cosy yet generous.
Aside from replacing all the lighting with modern fixtures, they retained most of the home’s existing conditions – they moved in “very quickly,” says John – and instead amplified the interiors with their collection of furniture, objects and art. Compared to their previous residences, Sutton Place presented them with a traditional framework that “really allowed for layering”. John reflects that “there didn’t have to be a sparseness. Our very humble collection of art really springs to life against this traditional backdrop.” Christine dubs it “the old Parisian apartment trick – you add contemporary pieces, and it looks amazing”.
Riffing on old and new is a continuous theme, and the Gachots’ witty and fun-loving take on warmth and refinement works like a charm in this pre-war residential context. In the traditional kitchen, a Janette Beckman photograph of musician André 3000 commands the room – “We eat breakfast with André every morning,” quips Christine – and two largescale Robert Rauschenberg pieces sit at one end of the Jean Prouvé dining table. Similarly, in the retro-looking powder room, a disco ball hangs from the ceiling and the phrase ‘Don’t judge, it’s a rental!’ is scrawled on the mirror in bright red lipstick beside a hand-drawn sketch by John.
Setting themselves up here was a laid-back process that involved “a few late nights and a couple of bottles of wine,” says Christine. “We’re constantly moving things around as well, so it’s always evolving, and there are personal little ‘Easter eggs’ everywhere that only we as a family know about.” She adds that it was, of course, different to the approach taken with their clients’ projects, both residential and commercial. “I’d love to be at my clients’ houses at one in the morning on the second bottle of wine; that doesn’t happen often, but it does at the Gachots’!”
Hospitality, as a through line, runs deep for the Gachots. It emerges in their affinity for designing bars, restaurants and hotels, a bent no doubt influenced by Christine’s 10-year stint leading design development at André Balasz Properties in the early 2000s. John initially founded Gachot Studios as a one-man operation with a strong focus on residential design, before Christine joined and, together, they grew the studio’s team and project scope.
At home, hospitality materialises in effortless hosting and a ‘more the merrier’ attitude. Sutton Place has played host to graduation celebrations, weekend brunches and many dinner parties, the latter of which John admits “aren’t necessarily more distinguished but certainly less debaucherous than those hosted at Beekman Place”.
With that said, spending time as a family is important to the Gachots, and Sutton Place’s more conventional domestic typology has helped to facilitate this. “Being New Yorkers, all four of us have very hectic lives, so the one thing we’ve typically been able to pull off is breakfast together – dinner is hard! And having this big kitchen in New York has felt like such a gift because it’s very rare,” says Christine.
“I find myself feeling so comfortable here, especially during the winter months, so we’re not getting in the car to head out to Shelter Island quite as much, and I mean that in the most positive way.”
Other rituals Christine and John have adopted since living here include morning walks along the East River with their springer spaniel, Slim, coffee in the study before the day whisks them in opposite directions, evening cocktails in the living room and generally revelling in a more restful experience of home.
“The neighbourhood is very special; it’s not crowded, and it’s almost a decompression from the hustle and bustle that we’re in [when we’re] Downtown,” says Christine. This feeling is so resonant, in fact, that escaping the city to their home on Shelter Island – a coastal enclave near the eastern end of Long Island – happens less regularly. “I find myself feeling so comfortable here, especially during the winter months, so we’re not getting in the car to head out to Shelter Island quite as much, and I mean that in the most positive way,” says Christine.
Nevertheless, with their sons back Downtown, it begs the question: where to next for these self-proclaimed “empty nesters”? “We’re young enough that we have another project left in us – that I’ll tell you for sure,” says Christine. “Our home on Shelter Island is very permanent, but there’s definitely a new neighbourhood or a new experience in us, because in an urban environment, there are so many different ways to live. We’ve done a loft and a classic seven … but we’ve never lived in a townhouse, so who knows?”
Interior design by Gachot Studios.
