With the help of designer Vanessa Deleon, Dolores Catania and Paul Connell created a “cohesive synergy” between modern and classic in their town house, Deleon says. Photo: Jason Ducusin
Dolores Catania and Paul Connell’s Bergen County residence was newly built. Still, Catania, a cast member on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Connell, president and CEO of Manhattan-based Eco Electrical Services LLC, wanted to infuse it with their own aesthetic.
“They’re very particular,” designer Vanessa Deleon says. “They wanted to refresh the spaces and tailor them to their liking.”
Deleon, a television staple herself on programs such as American Dream Builders and Restaurant Impossible, as well as a brand ambassador with Overstock.com, is principal designer at New York City-based Vanessa Deleon Associates. She describes her clients’ design preferences: “They wanted classic elements to reflect their traditional tastes. However, this is a modern town house. We didn’t want to stray from that aesthetic too much.”
The designer merged the two styles to create an elevated urban aesthetic that both celebrates the owners’ preferences and honors the contemporary bones of the home. “We made a cohesive synergy happen with the finishes and the architecture,” says Deleon, an allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers.
In the living room, the finishes and architecture meet in a wall treatment that reaches from the fireplace mantel to the 16-foot-high ceiling. “We considered marble or stone cladding, but everything felt too hard,” the designer says. Instead, they opted for the faux-leather installation. “We hit the nail on the head,” she says of the tall expanse of quilted squares rising in uniform rows above the fireplace. The ceiling features its own geometrics in the form of L-shaped insets that are lit from within for added drama.
The effect is repeated in the primary bedroom, this time with upholstered wall panels behind the bed. “The clients wanted more than a headboard,” Deleon explains. “They wanted it to speak to the room, to be very prominent.”
The deep-gray treatment is, indeed, a focal point. The tone is reinforced throughout the space with the inclusion of tactile textiles in shades of white and gray—from the quilted bedding to the faux-fur throw to the hand-tufted rug over the chevron-patterned hardwood floors.