Tour Tara Kantor’s Modern & Cozy New York Residence

Tara Kanner from Tara Kanner Interiors. Welcome to my home in Scarsdale, New York. Come on in. So this is my home. We built this home in 2013, so a while back, but we've lived here a long time and kind of changed some things over the years. This is the foyer. This mirror is custom from Etsy. I incorporate a lot of custom designs if I can't find something, I create it myself. You'll see that as we move through the house. The paneling, when we moved here, it was 2013. People weren't going quite as modern, but we were definitely on the more modern side. We wanted to have a little mix in the architecture, kind of pay homage to the Scarsdale community and not be too modern, but also be classic. This light fixture is by Apparatus and they don't make it anymore, actually, so I'm probably one of the last people to have it and it's the most absolutely beautiful thing. It's this glass. Welcome to my living room. This was empty for many years. After we moved from our tiny apartment in the city, we were overwhelmed with all the space and eventually as my business grew, I realized this could be a great place to meet clients. A lot of times people don't even use the living room, but I really do. You know, I keep all of my fabrics in all the cabinets here, so I have client meetings and we sit down at this table or they sit down here and we collaborate on our visions together. I probably designed this room a few years ago or four years ago. This piece in particular was a COVID purchase. I found an artist from Canada on Instagram and I impulsively bought something and my husband and I, because we couldn't have anyone come in the house, we put it up ourselves, which was not easy. This light fixture that I'm standing under was another Instagram find. He actually isn't working either anymore because it was so intricate and difficult to make these pieces, so I'm also one of the last people to that he's made this for. I love plaster. You're gonna see that a lot of places in my house, so I just think it adds like a lot of texture and character to a room and kind of gives the walls dimension and this initial paneling, which is original to when we built the house from scratch, I think it's really come back in style in this very like classic and clean way, which is kind of the signature style that I try to achieve. Another custom console here, this one I designed with my friend Josh from Bicker and Beam and now he sells it, the TK console, and I keep all the fabrics from all my favorite vendors readily accessible for my meetings. You know, the art collection has been growing over the years. This is a piece by Donald Sultan. This is a beautiful photograph by Brooke Holds. So this room is what we affectionately call Dakota's room. Dakota's my dog and it's an overflow room and where we sometimes hang out, but mostly she sleeps. So this is mostly where my dog spends some time, but, you know, we always come here sometimes at night and sit with her and read books. The kids do their homework too. And it's also a pass room to our outdoor patio area. This is where we, you know, have all of our summer barbecues. So, you know, we're in and out all the time. My favorite things about the room are this rug. You know, I don't have a lot of color in my house, but this is a room where I thought maybe I'd have some fun and I just love the color, the sage green couch. The rug is from Armadillo & Co. And the couch is actually from a CB2 because when your dog is sleeping on it, you really don't want to be, you know, spending a ton of money on something that she might ruin. All of these ceramics are collected from an Australian vendor called Clay Canoe. And he drops a shipment about once every few months and I get a notification on my phone and I go crazy and I have to set my alarm because it all sells out in 30 seconds. And I think his work is so beautiful. So now we're gonna go into the main powder room, which I had to actually redo about five years ago when the marble cracked, but I like any excuse to redo something in my own house. So what I decided was to create a giant integrated marble sink. And I wanted it to be really dramatic, so I brought it all the way down to the ground. I wanted to add a little detail, so I had this lip reveal. And this is plaster as well, but because it's in a bathroom, it has a little bit of a shine to make sure that, you know, water doesn't damage it. These sconces are from First Dibs, they're alabaster. And actually I think this mirror is from Zara. So it's a little bit of a mix and match in here, but because of the ceilings being so high, I really struggled to find a mirror that looked right. I found this and I thought it might work and it did. So now we're gonna go to the family room, which because it's open concept, you can access in multiple areas. This is the front door. And here is where we kind of spend our evenings as a family watching TV. I wanted it to be a big open concept design so that when I'm hosting or cooking, that everyone's in the same room at the same time. We have a very large family. We constantly have, you know, the place filled with people. This coffee table is chagrin. It's probably one of the few things I have left from 2013 when I moved into this house. Not only is it so big, it's like unwieldy to move, but I think it's the perfect size for the space. I also love that it has this hidden drawer, which is where I keep albums that I make every year for my kids' birthdays. And I'm running out of space actually, but we sit here and we look at them at night sometimes. All the accessories are collected from places all over the world. And, you know, in an area like this, which is very high traffic, I try not to make things that are easily breakable. I probably wouldn't put a vase here. So I have this beautiful pull. I think it's from Current Home in New York City. And this is from Montana LaBelle. She's another Canadian artist. This sofa is custom made from Artistic Frame, a vendor that I do a lot of work with because they basically customize everything to whatever specification you want. And the rug, it's a very high performance rug, kid-friendly, dog-friendly. It's from my friend at Fayette Studio that we do a lot of work with as well. Here we have our kitchen table. This is a reclaimed wood table. I bought it in the Hamptons in 2013. The chairs are vintage from First Dibs. The light fixture is from Apparatus, another vendor that you'll see kind of often. And then the biggest and most favorite thing in my kitchen are the TK Stools, another kind of custom piece that I designed and is sold by Thomas Hayes. And the TK Stool was this venture collaboration from, I would say, about six years ago. And it really kind of took off, and it's a very popular stool. And that's the signature bolster that I designed. We have two dishwashers, which we need for all the hosting. And even though this is a marble countertop, and I was very reluctant to get a marble countertop because of worrying about staining and whatnot, it's actually held up very well. You just have to maintain it. So I've probably gotten it professionally cleaned about twice in the 10 years I've lived here. And I think it's holding up great, and I'm really happy that I took the risk and did it because I love marble. It's Danby, by the way, which is an American marble, which tends to be a little more sturdy than some of the Italian marbles. As someone who hosts a lot, the Butchler Pantry is very important as far as my prepping for having 40 people for Thanksgiving. Whether it's using this as an extra serving station or labeling my platters to prep, this countertop creates a quite beautiful backdrop with this special marble, but also a very practical place for me to keep all the platters and all the serving things. This piece is random vintage artist from first dibs. And again, this is my favorite clay canoe, Australian ceramicist. I've learned over the years that I like to keep things hidden, which is why you see this wall of closed cabinets and even my coffee maker and toaster oven, which hide so that no one sees anything that I don't want them to see. They're very popular right now, these coffee makers. And I have my little station right here too. Every morning I come here. In some of the closed storage, I have all my platters, which are very useful when I'm hosting my 40 person people dinners. Then I walk right into my dining room. So this table was custom made. It was actually, I think the first custom piece I ever made. There was this chagrin detail that I added to the base of it. And what I wanted to do was make use of the fact that this room is kind of wide and long. So, and the fact that we have such a big family that I wanted at least three people to sit here. So on certain occasions we squeeze an extra chair and we could host up to 15 to 16 in this room. There's overflow into the other room because I think one of the things that we did design this house was that every room would connect to the next so we could all be together. So, you know, it's quite often that it spills out into other areas. We have plaster on the walls again, and the ceiling detail that kind of highlights this beautiful piece again by apparatus. These vases are from Current Home. The flowers are actually faux flowers from a friend of mine, a designer, Emily DelBello. She has an amazing business aside being a designer. She makes these beautiful, very lifelike fake flowers. This custom piece was made by the same vendor who made the table. They're no longer in business. This is kind of older. I think it's about 10 years old. This art is from South African artists. And again, my favorite ceramics from vendors all over the world. So now we're gonna go to the other area of the first floor which is our kind of indoor outdoor living space. And it starts out with a powder room which is across from the pool so that people can easily come in if they need to. Another plastered wall. I wanted to have a very almost like Mediterranean Greek feel in this room which I think I achieved with this limestone and like very beige vibe. And this is a sconce from a Hennepin made vendor that I work with a lot. So this is one of my favorite rooms in the house. It's our pool room bar. And it was the first idea that we had. Really, it was my husband's idea. I'll give him credit. We wanted to have indoor outdoor space. The doors open the whole way. I mean, the pool's not open now because it's October but when it is, it's just very easy access. We do use this room year round. We just hosted some people for Halloween here. The floor is a ceramic porcelain tile so that the indoor outdoor wet space is not an issue. The bar is fluted wood which I really like. It's a nice little extra detail. And these stools are again from Thomas Hayes, a friend of mine who makes furniture. These reclaimed beams, they are from upstate New York. And when they came, they were twice the size and we didn't know what to do with them. So we just cut them in half because they were so thick and chunky. And I just love the organic feel they give to the space. Storage is very big for me. So these all hold towels which every single one of them hold towels. So it's definitely, you never need to bring a towel here or a drink because our bar is always stocked. And these lights are from Allied Maker, another lighting designer that I work a lot with. Here we have a beautiful piece that again, it's like this plaster kind of highlighting what I want, like this organic feel to the room. And yeah, that's the space. So it's a beautiful fall day, but our pool is not open but we keep the outdoor furniture out pretty much until it starts snowing. Because like I said, we use this kind of all year on a nice day like tonight. The flow is great because you could just, you know in and out as much as you want easy. We play ping pong a lot and we grill all year long. This is our covered patio which allows us to use this kind of rain or shine. We added heat lamps during the pandemic so we could eat outside but we actually are very thankful to them because you know on a night like tonight, we might come out here for dinner and it gets a little colder at night. This is the server where I put out all of my food for everyone to eat. After dinner or sometimes during dinner when I have so many people, we come here and we sit by the fire and watch TV. Now we're in the family room and we're gonna next go to the basement. The door to the basement is right in the middle of the family room. And we actually made a glass so it didn't seem or feel like you were walking into a basement and you'll see why momentarily. Okay, so now this is my second favorite or tie for favorite depending on the year. This is our basement and we decided to build a sports bar for our basement which I'm really thankful we did because you know, as the kids have gotten older they've enjoyed it just as much as we have. We have Pac-Man, we have Papa Shot. I'm not taking a shot though, sorry. I'm not as good as my kids in basketball but I am really good at ping pong which is why you've seen so many ping pong tables in this house. This is a walnut ping pong table with leather stitching and not only does it look beautiful but the bounce is actually to me preferable than you know, a standard ping pong table. I had this custom made by Lawson Fenning a furniture maker in LA. This is steel based and it's where I keep my ping pong paddles and balls. This bar was a work in progress to get the steel structures to fit. I think it's like 13 feet long. It's an enormous bar and it was definitely like an engineering feat of immense proportions but I'm very thankful we figured it out because we use it all the time. The wood is a custom stained wood that took about 20 iterations to make because I wanted it just the right amount of brown and gray which is not an easy feat but we did it successfully. We added mesh to hide the alcohol. It is locked although I think people know how to open it at this point. The other thing that we really wanted was, you know my family, I have two boys and a husband who every Sunday they watch football pretty much all day long and Saturdays too. So we wanted to kind of make it a place where they could watch all the games at the same time. As a result, we host often during the winter and that is why my wine cellar which is usually stocked is a little sparse right now because we just recently had the entire football team a hundred people over with their parents. This light fixture is by Apparatus and it hangs over a wine barrel coffee table that I custom made again on Etsy. The wall is arabescato bookmatched marble and those extra wood beams that we kept in our basements we reused them and to frame this entire space which I think adds a very nice kind of earthy touch. And this is the golf simulator room. Another one of my husband's favorite spaces. Not only can he play golf whenever he wants but he's also able to put all of his Grateful Dead cover albums in a wall that I made just for him. And we built this bench, you know so that people could sit and watch golf. And we added a bar stool, you know and people definitely come in when we're hosting and wind up in here. My husband plays often although it has not made him a better player. He certainly has a lot of fun. So this is my office where I spend a lot of my time. We have two computers. One is my husband's. He doesn't work from home but he does use the space. And so do my kids. We have custom built-ins and millwork with lime wash plaster, chairs from Lawson Penning a vendor that I mentioned before in a black and white blue clay. And we do sit here at night sometimes when I'm on the computer and the kids have questions or they're doing their homework. And then here we have what I call my accessory showroom. There have been many iterations of accessories over the years but I finally settled on this. And, you know, again, it just reflects my favorite vendors from all over the world. And how people often ask me how you style it's inexplicable. I really can't, it's like trial and error. Then you take a picture and you look and you see, you know where space needs to be filled. And, you know, there's a very delicate balance between too much and just enough. And, you know, I love, it makes a great zoom screen. I'll tell you a very great zoom background that people always comment on. It's one of my favorite parts of the house. And this is the primary suite. It's a pretty expansive space. And, you know, at first we were worried that it would feel too big but I think we've managed by adding, you know it feels both spacious and cozy. We added a chair in the corner, double dresser again from Lawson Penning. And, you know, by adding a bench in front of the bed you take up more visual space in the room. One of my favorite things about the house is that we don't overlook any neighbors. So, you know, I'm not gonna lie. It's really nice looking outside the window every morning and just seeing trees. We really appreciate that. The nightstands are vintage and they're covered in this very forgiving grass cloth. Again, more of my hand collected accessories. Luckily I have a lot of surface space to put all of them. This couch, I do sit here sometimes but also it does wind up to be perfectly honest like a piling ground for clothing but today it looks just perfect. And then here's where I do my hair and makeup or just, you know, sit and maybe some work. These doors lead outside. I would love to tell you that we go there and we sit outside, but we do not. We've talked about it over the years many times and we always say we're gonna put furniture out there but so far we have not. I did have a dream of having a DJ at my party play out there but we couldn't figure out the speakers, maybe one day. This beautiful mirror is by Ben and Angela LeBlanc and it leads into my bathroom on one side and the closet on the other. So here's our balcony. Again, maybe a future projects and then there's another balcony on that side too. To be honest, the balconies are mostly used. We have a pool basketball and the kids stand on the balcony and they try to make shots from here but maybe one day this will be a sitting area for my husband and I. So I hope you enjoyed the tour of my home. If you like what you see, subscribe to the Luxury Home Show and don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Tara Canner Interiors. Bye.