Don’t pretend you’ve never had an Eloise-ian fantasy—living in a Plaza-like hotel, surrounded by the finest amenities, basking in a life of effortless luxury. (Minus, of course, the bathtub overflows and staff harassment.) That’s more or less what global event planner Michelle Rago had in mind when decamping from her Manhattan apartment of 30 years to her dream home in Lambertville, New Jersey. Rago, who’s constantly on the move for work—London, Cabo, and Brazil are next on her itinerary—says, “I’ve grown up in luxury hotels.”
Fittingly, her introduction to the designer for this project came during a stay at her “favorite hotel in the world,” Claridge’s. “I was getting a tour from the woman who is the maître d’, and I said, ‘I love that chair. I love this bar.’ And by the fifth time, she said, ‘So you love Bryan O’Sullivan.’”
So she enlisted the designer to take on her 1924 Craftsman, which was originally a Sears and Roebuck mail-order kit home. “Michelle wasn’t afraid, and she was very decisive,” says O’Sullivan, which allowed the team to make flamboyant design choices while still maintaining the house’s historical integrity.