{"id":288155,"date":"2026-07-06T15:55:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288155\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:55:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:55:58","slug":"revisiting-madonnas-90s-new-york-city-apartment-designed-by-her-late-brother-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288155\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Madonna\u2019s \u201990s New York City Apartment, Designed By Her Late Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo: Durston Saylor<\/p>\n

The Queen of Pop<\/a>, Madonna, is back on the throne today with the release of her new album Confessions II, a follow up to 2005\u2019s Confessions on a Dance Floor. What better occasion to look back on the Grammy-winning singer\u2019s illustrious career and life?<\/p>\n

AD visited her New York City apartment for the November 1991 issue. The mother of reinvention first purchased the pad with ex-husband Sean Penn<\/a>, and later added two more units and gave the home a complete overhaul with help from architect Stephen Wang and her younger brother and frequent collaborator Christopher G. Ciccone. In later years, Madonna and Ciccone would have a falling out, though they found their way back to each other before he lost his battle with cancer in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I finally got the courage to go to New York to become a dancer, my brother followed, and again we took each other\u2019s hands, and we danced through the madness of New York City,\u201d wrote the singer in a tribute to Ciccone after his death. In a podcast interview last year, she confirmed that one song on Confessions II, titled \u201cFragile\u201d, is about Ciccone.<\/p>\n

Below, revisit the NYC home they created together, where Madonna once sent faxes from her office while looking at her Picasso.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I wanted most was just to love my environment,\u201d says Madonna of her apartment in an unassuming brick building on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side. As conceived and executed by the creative hand of Christopher G. Ciccone, her younger brother and most trusted confidant, the apartment is a low-key yet glamorous sanctuary, a place that allows her, once inside, a temporary escape.<\/p>\n

Madonna entrusted her brother with the design of her Los Angeles house (she gave him ten days to do it) and never thought of having anyone else envision and execute the New York space. \u201cWho could I have more in common with than someone I grew up with?\u201d Madonna says of her choice of designer. \u201cWe like the same things, from music to what we eat.\u201d Although Ciccone has no formal art training, he designed the stage sets for the Blonde Ambition tour, which was the setting for the documentary Truth or Dare, and he is an artist in his own right. But he is wholly self-taught in the area of interior design.<\/p>\n

Ciccone knew early on what he wanted to do. \u201cI wanted to create a New York apartment. In Los Angeles the living spaces are big, wide open. There are loft-like attributes to them, and also the feeling of living in a penthouse. In New York I wanted to make a space for her that was elegant without being weak, peaceful without being boring. She prefers New York to Los Angeles because when she\u2019s here she can relax. There\u2019s a city here\u2014you feel you are with people, living with the rest of the world, not confined to an automobile. But it still had to be a place she would feel safe in. Even though there\u2019s a view of Central Park, you don\u2019t feel exposed to anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cSubdued<\/p>\n

\u201cSubdued elegance\u201d is how Christopher G. Ciccone describes the Art Deco setting he created for Madonna\u2019s apartment. The designer, who is Madonna\u2019s brother, by Tamara de Lempicka\u2019s Nue \u00e1 la Colombe, 1930.<\/p>\n

The apartment, he explains, had originally been three separate units. \u201cMadonna and Sean [Penn] bought the first apartment\u2014the living room, dining room, a much smaller kitchen and two small bedrooms\u2014maybe five or six years ago,\u201d he says. \u201cA second one was purchased after their divorce a couple of years ago, and a third\u2014which constitutes the back sitting room and bath\u2014was acquired six months later when the place had been gutted, which of course made it necessary to change the plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciccone made virtually all the major design decisions, talking with Madonna once a week, while architect Stephen Wang, a partner of the New York firm Procter and Wang, carried them out. The style that emerged is a classic early Art Deco look. Ciccone kept as many original details of the 1915 building as possible, such as moldings and fireplaces, and paid attention to all-new minutiae, including the doorknobs and the color of screws. \u201cI wanted to stay away from American Deco and late Deco,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause I felt this style was easier to live with and would age well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main problem was to make the three apartments feel as though they had always been one. Working with Stephen Wang, Ciccone got the effects he wanted, especially in the hallway, a long barrel-vaulted space that runs from the living and dining rooms down to Madonna’s bedroom and dressing room at the end of the apartment. \u201cA hallway is a very important part of a New York apartment,\u201d says Ciccone. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got one, it means you have lots of room. It\u2019s something grand and should be given a certain amount of elegance. A castle is not a castle without a moat. A New York apartment should have a great hallway.\u201d There were problems installing the central air conditioning (which Madonna never uses anyway because she prefers open windows) and the lighting, but in this instance Ciccone decided it had to be his way. Says Wang, \u201cWith his artistic background, Christopher has fewer constraints than an architect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Setting<\/p>\n

Setting the muted tone in the entrance is a circa-1930 Fresson print titled Nude by French photographer Laure Albin-Guillot and a Pompeian-style Klismos chair from the late 19th century.<\/p>\n

The spaces are breezily cozy rather than sweeping or grand, and the colors subdued, even in the vestibule, where a Picasso-inspired rug is complemented by a Se et Mare chandelier and an 18th-century Irish oval mirror. The living room, where Ciccone left the original molding, is a comfortable amalgam of dark blues, deep purples and some mossy greens. Madonna owns four paintings by Tamara de Lempicka, in which female figures are refracted against deep-colored geometric patterns, and the room reflects that angled elegance. The sofa was made from photos of Coco Chanel\u2019s studio; Mondrian inspired bookshelves, designed by Ciccone when the first apartment was purchased, flank a fireplace; and alabaster sconces cast a soft glow over a Steinway baby grand piano.<\/p>\n

Madonna\u2019s art collection, however, is the key to the apartment. Vintage photographs, mostly of female nudes, including works by Andr\u00e9 Kert\u00e9sz, look more like a series of abstract shapes than human figures. A Salvador Dal\u00ed depicts a veiled red heart, somehow fitting for this comfortable yet completely stylized environment. \u201cI get strength from my art\u2014all the paintings I own are powerful,\u201d says Madonna. \u201cAs an artist myself, I know what it\u2019s like to put your heart and soul into something. You can feel the presence of another person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darlene Lutz, who for five years has advised Madonna on her art collection (which includes two coveted Frida Kahlo paintings that hang in California) and helped shop for many of her furnishings and objects from Paris to Los Angeles, takes it one step further. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that Madonna is an appropriator of images,\u201d says Lutz. \u201cEverything she does tells a story. She takes the narrative out of the art and puts it into her work. When she was collecting de Lempicka, for instance, you could see those forms in the videos, as in the one for \u201cExpress Yourself.\u201d A recent series of portraits of her by Steven Meisel was much like the photographic work by Brassa\u00ef.\u201d Lutz adds that Madonna\u2019s collecting is a learning process. \u201cShe\u2019s not big on three-dimensional work, but sometimes I still show it to her. We go constantly to exhibitions and to see collections, and that gives me the opportunity to see how she is looking at things, which changes all the time. I\u2019ve never gone out with a checklist of artwork from a certain period. That has never been my\u2014or Madonna\u2019s\u2014focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Christopher Ciccone\u2019s designs were influenced by the furniture of the lesser known Art Deco designer Eug\u00e8ne Printz. \u201cI consider him a grandfather of decorative arts,\u201d he says. \u201cHe was doing a familiar thing at the time, but always with a twist. His work was never perfectly streamlined.\u201d One of Printz\u2019s signature design motifs\u2014accordion-folded doors (portes accord\u00e9on) on cabinets\u2014was adapted by Ciccione for the cabinet doors in the dining room and the head- and footboards of Madonna\u2019s bed. \u201cI didn\u2019t like him in his purest form,\u201d says Ciccone. \u201cIt was too much of one thing, which I feel gets boring. It may be great to look at once, but to continue to reenter a room over and over and not get tired of it\u2026 That\u2019s why this apartment is made the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ciccone,<\/p>\n

Ciccone, who converted three small apartments into one, kept the original circa-1915 leaded-glass doors. Above a second Klismos chair in the vestibule is a circa-1790 Irish cobalt-blue-and-white mirror. The circa-1924 gilt-bronze S\u00fce et Mare chandelier has a bowl signed by Daum. Rug by Edward Fields.<\/p>\n

The kitchen is in direct contrast to the main living areas, a combination of white tile and stainless steel. Although the majority of the apartment was designed by Ciccone, he says the kitchen was the most \u201ccollaborative effort.\u201d One specific Madonna request: a breakfast nook that was made to resemble a booth in a 1950s diner. Over this booth, however, instead of a jukebox, is a 1927 photograph by Jacques-Henri Lartigue of two women called The Rowe Twins. The space is useful but small, made for intimate gatherings. \u201cI don\u2019t like rooms you never use or that are wasted space,\u201d says Madonna, \u201cbut I also like a sparseness and a cleanness.\u201d But, Ciccone adds, \u201cMadonna doesn\u2019t cook much. I think she has a couple of cookbooks, and now and then she makes Rice Krispies treats, but I wanted to give her the option if she wanted to,\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n

The same intimacy is true of the dining room across the vestibule. The highly burnished Art Deco table was one of the first pieces bought by Penn and Madonna. The kitchen was even smaller then, so they ate breakfast there, not wanting to eat standing over the stove.<\/p>\n

Off the hallway is a guest bedroom, with a central square of recessed lighting almost tracing the perimeter of the bed, and Madonna\u2019s office, where Ciccone devised Indian rosewood shelving and a multifaceted desk that folds open and closed.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cI<\/p>\n

\u201cI get strength from my art\u2014all the paintings I own are powerful,\u201d says Madonna. Les Deux Bicyclettes, 1944, by Fernand L\u00e9ger hangs over the living room mantel. Le Coeur Voil\u00e9, 1932, by Dal\u00ed is framed by Mondrian-style bookshelves designed by Ciccone. The Art Deco pieces\u2014a Macassar ebony low table by Jean Pascaud by the sofa, the armchairs at left by Eug\u00e8ne Printz, two walnut berg\u00e8res en gondole, foreground, by Armand Albert Rateau and the circular lacquered table by Dominique\u2014are all anchored by the circa-1930 rug, initialed \u201cCR.\u201d Sofa fabric is from Clarence House.<\/p>\n

Photo: Durston Saylor<\/p>\n

Taking center stage in Madonna\u2019s bedroom is a king-size bed, with Ciccone\u2019s version of Printz\u2019s accordion-folded head and footboards, in front of a series of tied-back draperies. \u201cThe bed is theatrical but subdued, very appropriate to my client,\u201d says Ciccone, laughing. \u201cAnd she wanted yellow in the room, but I didn\u2019t exactly want to put lemon on the walls. I wanted something that glowed in a serene way.\u201d What he found was a shade of yellowish beige that every piece of fabric and every object in the room picks up on and reflects. He devised an oval ceiling light fixture, also inspired by a Printz design, which lights indirectly, softening the room\u2019s edges. The six-sided dressing room (\u201cThis is where she hides,\u201d says Ciccone), which continues the same colors and has the same oval ceiling lighting, features a small vanity table flanked by two closets with built-in drawers because, as her brother explains, \u201cMadonna doesn’t like dressers standing around.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most striking rooms is the bath, where a series of repeating pointed Moorish arches\u2014an appropriated Casbah of sorts\u2014echoes the vaulted hallway. One arched doorway separates the front part of the room where the tub is located from the marble-lined steam shower with a marble seat (\u201cI think everyone connected with the apartment has tried the shower,\u201d Ciccone says). The windows, which open with white tassel pulls, are also arched; even the medicine cabinet is a double-doored arch. And everything is covered in white Italian marble with a hint of rose vein, except in the shower, where the vein is a deep gray.<\/p>\n

For the shower, which has a marble frame, Stephen Wang had to figure out how to \u201cwork out a door with a vaulted head and make the hardware work too,\u201d he points out. \u201cA frameless shower door and a vault may look simple, but they\u2019re not easy to achieve.\u201d Adds Christopher Ciccone, \u201cStephen was great in letting my creativity take precedence. I would submit poor drawings, which would be corrected. I learned a lot from watching him work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ciccone can\u2019t seem to let go of this job. Like his sister, he is constantly changing, rearranging, adjusting, reinventing. \u201cI don\u2019t think you ever truly finish a job like this,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople\u2019s tastes continue to evolve and change. I would be surprised if Madonna was content with this for the next ten years.\u201d Madonna, of course, knows her own mind about these things. \u201cWe call Christopher the pope because everything has to get his seal of approval,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I wouldn\u2019t say the apartment is one hundred percent finished. I like to change. A new lamp, a piece of art, can transform a room. I reserve the right to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A circa-1930 sideboard by Eug\u00e8ne Printz features one of his signature design motifs\u2014accordion-folded doors. Andromeda, 1929, by Tamara de Lempicka and a pair of late-1930s American club chairs are grouped in another area of the living room.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/p>\n

Christopher Ciccone designed a built-in mahogany buffet to complement the circa-1930 dining table and chairs by Jean Pascaud. On the wall is Nana de Herrera, 1930, by de Lempicka. Chair and silk moir\u00e9 drapery fabrics by Andr\u00e9 Bon.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cI<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the office because I can use my fax machine and look at my Picasso at the same time,\u201d says Madonna.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The gym is completely sound-proofed so that the stereo system (\u201cMadonna likes to feel the music,\u201d says her brother) can\u2019t be heard elsewhere. At left is Portrait of a Boxer, mid-1940s, by Claggett Wilson and an untitled 1927 photograph by Franti\u0161ek Drtikol.<\/p>\n

\"Stainless<\/p>\n

Stainless steel resonates through the kitchen, in contrast with the rest of the apartment. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do an Art Deco kitchen,\u201d says Ciccone. \u201cYou get the best appliances and work around them. But the only reason there\u2019s a microwave is that Madonna likes to make popcorn.\u201d Sub-Zero refrigerator.<\/p>\n

\"Along<\/p>\n

Along the barrel-vaulted hallway, which Ciccone designed and architect Stephen Wang executed, are numerous vintage prints, including Nude, 1929, by George Platt Lynes (at rear) and a series of nude distortions by Andr\u00e9 Kert\u00e9sz.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A series of Moorish pointed arches, repeated on the door of the steam shower and medicine chest, punctuates the bath, which Ciccone covered in rectangular pieces of Italian marble. The bathtub has silvered claw-and-ball feet.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/p>\n

Another oval ceiling light softens the angles of the six-sided dressing room. Over the fireplace is The Young King of the Black Isles, 1906, by Maxfield Parrish. The Art Deco armchair is attributed to Michel Dufet and the dressing table to Paul Follot. The 1920s rug is signed \u201cP. Laconte.\u201d Edward Fields carpet.<\/p>\n

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest<\/a><\/p>\n

More Great Celebrity Style Stories From AD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Durston Saylor The Queen of Pop, Madonna, is back on the throne today with the release of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[110148,110147,13118,9,110150,24,55,54,56,110149],"class_list":["post-288155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-christopher-ciccone","tag-christopher-g-ciccone","tag-madonna","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-apartment","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-stephen-wang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}