Living up high in NYC

Miranda Dempster and Gus McKay in their New York apartment. Photo / Babiche Martens.

Zoe Walker visits the stylish apartments of creative New Zealanders Miranda Dempster and Guy McKay.

Miranda Dempster, an art director at New York magazine, and Gus McKay, a tailor at luxury Italian label Brunello Cucinelli, moved into their airy two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment in November, decorating the space with pieces collected from around New York and from home in New Zealand.

The couple's mutual design backgrounds are hinted at throughout the house: a bookshelf of photography and art books, typographic references such as Van Gogh letters in the window, an ampersand pillow and a Richard Lewer postcard proclaiming "I Must Learn to Like Myself". These sit with mid-century touches and pops of colour: a Saarinen-style tulip table, sofa by Danish designer Jens Risom, coloured glass vases.

The living area's 5.4m-high roof and large windows are the highlights of the apartment.
Elsewhere in the block the space has been converted into a mezzanine, but in Dempster and McKay's apartment the tall white walls offer the perfect showcase for their art.

Many of the pieces were collected through the years or were gifts from artist friends such as Daniel Malone, Kate Small and Julian Dashper (McKay's brother is Wellington art dealer Hamish McKay, which helps). A drawing of an orange hopping rabbit is by Martin Poppelwell, a fellow student of Dempster's at Elam.

"That was his first-year submission; they failed him ... he gave it to me because he thought it was funny.

"It is mostly stuff that friends gave to me, or that I acquired; I haven't actively collected but it accumulates over the years," explains Dempster, who has called New York home for 20 years. She moved back to New Zealand in 2009, before returning to the city with McKay and starting at New York in 2011.

They moved into a "very small" West Village brownstone, where Dempster had lived for more than 10 years, but the size proved difficult.

"When you live in a really small space, I think you end up living in denial about the reality of it; you just have to, it's the only way you can cope," explains Dempster.

The reality hit home after the couple returned from a holiday, and began looking for a place to buy.

"I had wanted to move to Brooklyn for a really long time, but I wanted Gus to live in Manhattan before that - it's a different experience."

And though Dempster feels they haven't had a chance yet to explore their new neighbourhood, it feels like home.

"The neighbourhood is not nearly as 'pretty' as where we were, but the people who live here feel more like our community ... It feels like we fit in."

- VIVA