At Home in Milan with Eric Egan

I moved to Milan 35 years ago to study architecture at the Politecnico di Milano and while I was a student I would often walk down through Piazza Castello looking up at all the amazing buildings here and wondering what it might be like to live here. I've been here now for many years and I've built my career here in Milan and I'm lucky enough to both live and work on Piazza Castello which is my favorite neighborhood in the city. What I love most about living here is that we live literally inside of a park overlooking a 14th century castle which is as somebody who has come from Chicago from America is still pretty amazing and I'm able to use the park every day and it's wonderful to have this oasis within the city. One of the things I like best about living in Italy is the tremendous number of artisans that are still living and working here. It allows us to do so many things that would be so hard to do in another country. Here it's so easy custom fabrics, custom finishes, going to the marble yards, working with artisans. It's a real pleasure and a privilege. We're lucky enough as a studio to design both houses and hotels and we've been lucky enough to work on some of the great hotels in Italy including the Gritti Palace, the Belmond Hotel Cipriani, the St. Regis in Florence, and the Mandarin Oriental Lago di Como. As far as residential work, we tend to design houses in Hong Kong, Italy, and the United Kingdom more than any place else. Eric, so just to set the stage here, just got in from Milan last night, Stacy and I. This is crazy because when I heard that I was meeting you in your office first and then we're going to go to your apartment next just down the street, I thought, okay, we'll get a couple of shots of his office at the conference table. Little did I know that this is possibly one of the most beautiful spaces I've ever seen and it's just so luxurious. What was your intention to create for your clients when they enter here? When I found this space, it was a wonderful apartment to start with and I thought it would be a great place to showcase what is our style. You know the question you always get is, so what's your style? And I never knew how to respond to that question so now I just say, why don't you come over, see our office, and if you like it, we're the designers for you. If you don't, there are plenty of other designers out there. Well I can't imagine someone not loving this. I mean obviously it's very maximalist, it's very luxurious, and I love, for me selfishly, by the way, I would hire you in two seconds. After being here, after one second, I'm struck right away by the layering of luxurious materials like the velvets here, these old world portraits, but also talk to me about the creative way that you did it. It almost looks modern in a way of how you created this wall covering. What is this? This wall covering is by Fromental and we redid this room during the COVID and so... I love how you say it like the COVID. So it was done with Fromental and we had to do a digitally printed paper because China was closed and the artisans were not able to paint. So this is a Fromental paper that then we added 11 columns of hand-blocked paper, a Venetian paper of the Doge's Palace, and trimmed with Ulez, Passementerie, that we did a special line called Imperiale for Ulez. Okay, so I would hire you just on the inventiveness of what you did here. First of all, you overcame a hurdle with how to create, right? You thought of the digital, but I'm just always so interested, what gave you this idea to do the borders, the juxtaposition, the trim? Well, we had the paper in stock and looking through, Munchardino did this a lot where he would do different fabrics and so here we did the same idea but different papers and it gave the room an architectural rhythm as you go around the room. You can see it broke the room up and we did it all long distance. I was in South America, Amadeo who helped me with this was here in Milan and we worked it out all in the space of about two days. Really, I mean it's incredible and also what I would love to point out which really speaks to me is the old world nature of some of your art but then this looks like Warhol prints here that are just coexisting with what time period is this wonderful painting? This is Dirk Hall's from the 1600s. These are Warhol's Ladies and Gentlemen which were printed in 1975 here in Milan, which is why they're here. I bought them over the course of about 10 years at house sales but I like them because I feel it's a personal project of Warhol and also has a connection to the city and also I just I think they're beautiful. I think he would be very amused and happy to know that he was coexisting with an old world portrait in such a kind of a space here. Yeah, I love them. Come on into the conference room. This is your conference room? So fabulous. This is like the opposite of corporate culture. It's so gorgeous in here. I would never want to leave this room either. This is my favorite room in the office and it all started with this fabric which is Manoches by Rubelli and it's an old Rubelli fabric that's been discontinued for ages and I bought all of the stock and we had just enough to get around this room. So it's just it's really my favorite and it's based on the dining room of a man named Dino Francine who was a great antiques dealer here in Milan in the 80s and who was one Jardino's principal antiques dealer and his own apartment felt like this and I was lucky enough to visit it once when I was about 22. I want to see if are there any pictures of it that I can. No, it was all it was before the age of the internet there are no photos. So you based this room on a memory that you had of a boy. I love that. That's incredible. Remember with your eyes. And then I'm noticing because Stacy went to Brown, you also went to Brown. That is I love that touch that kind of cheeky touch of your alma mater framed. My father gave that to me and I hung it up there thinking that no one would see it and everyone notices it. Everyone knows it's like during a meeting they're like hey Eric you went to Brown. But again I love that it seems that many pieces in here either nod or got their roots from not just Italy but Milan where we are or there's something very personal to you. Well we didn't buy anything specific for this space. They were all things that I've had I've collected over the years. I've been here for 35 years. You've been here for I mean you were born in Chicago. Yes. But you've been here for 35 years. I mean that's rare to meet an American that has lived that long in a city. I came here two weeks after graduation. From Brown? Yes. And also I wanted to ask you is this are these things for clients to be inspired from tiles or because it almost looks like an art installation in and of itself. These are all sample tiles from one of our suppliers in Naples called the Regola Brothers and they have stock of all of these so if we're doing a country house we can do a room in any one of these. I love it the Regola Brothers like I want to meet them like they sound great already. Also I envision myself like how lucky are your clients they come they get to choose like what their country house of one of these I mean they would all look so fantastic but it it instantly gets you to start dreaming and scheming right something I mean do you usually start with a floor or not always necessarily. It depends it could be a fabric it could be the floor it could be a piece of fabric for the curtains and antique it just depends on the project. But there's something about this room that instantly gets you dreaming about how you would like to live if you would be so lucky. I think it's all about the proportions of the space it just works. So these were originally four bookcases that we bought in Madrid and we slice them join them they're anchored to the wall on this side of the room we have American decorators on that side of the room we have European decorators organized by country. Welcome this is the world's smallest elevator so I will meet you on the fourth floor. Or I'll meet you on the fourth okay okay it really probably is yes it is see oh wait it's already moving okay wait fourth floor yep okay oh my gosh you beat me up those stairs that's how slow that elevator was although you're very fast slow and small I love it okay so we're at your apartment yes is this that's our house dog guarding the house okay perfect and here we are I love this this was literally like a 30 second walk from where we just were in your office I'm very lazy come in you're also very talented Eric oh my gosh it's just so glamorous here this is incredible you know were you impacted a lot also by Halston days 70s New York because maybe it's the war halls that I see but the kind of glossy glamorousness I sometimes get a little bit of a jolt of Manhattan in the good old days this apartment when I got it this was the old servant's wing of a grand apartment and this we're on the top floor the ceilings were lower and I lowered them further to bring them to New York proportions you never hear people lowering ceilings why is that because the rooms were too small and too tall so you had to just take it down just lower inside it also allowed me to have central air conditioning which almost almost nobody has in Europe wow and then I think this is so interesting that we are coming into almost before the living room a kind of library look at your collection of books here this is incredible yes these are all based on architecture design cars all of my more personal interests whereas the office is all about interior design but it's very it's an interesting and wonderful way to use a kind of pass-through space of making it feel like you do like while you're waiting for someone you just want to pull a book out and just sit here you'll we use this space a lot I use this I get dressed here in the morning I keep a lot of my things in here and also this originally was the living room and you'll see later it was I broke it up to make the bedroom in this library I see and then here is the incredible living room oh my gosh what did you say to me back in the office you said something like now we are going to the place where I sleep because that's almost like the apartment too it's like an it's one big living space this is a private space this is a personal space I don't really receive people here if I entertain we entertain in the office this is where I come to at night this is my relaxing space these are all my personal interests my personal things it's more modern it's more fresh it's a different it's a different atmosphere that's interesting you don't I mean one would feel like of course you shouldn't entertain here I can't believe guests don't see it but this is like your personal kind of restorative time yes this is for space for me and my family it's just for us speaking of New York in the 80s and 70s Scavolo of Diana Ross I just love how she's existing in Milan in 2024 looking completely at home this that piece was bought specifically for that place and she's not the only Scavolo in here there's also a Scavolo of Robert Mapplethorpe and oh my gosh I'm just discovering that now and you've layered them against I think I read did you customize this wallpapers with Romontal like how did this come about talk to me about how you even came up with this idea to really wrap this whole room in this pattern this is haiku that I developed together with Tim Butcher of Romontal and it's based on Japanese 19th century screens that normally there are six panels and here we wanted to create the entire room into a screen then you can see the top and the bottom it's edged in this marbled paper which recalls the kimono cloth that normally wraps Japanese screens okay well that's pretty incredible and interestingly you I didn't really think about Japanese influences at the other place here I mean tell me about Japan does that I mean we've talked about New York in the 80s and 70s obviously that's a time period that you love but that was all in style then oh my gosh you're right hard deco black lacquered finishes there was a lot of that the flowers the singular what was it the calla lilies that a lot of people were doing back then you're right it had a kind of Japanese aesthetic and especially in this room where we don't have a view I was trying to create internal views looking from one room into the other and then to have scenery within the room and the way that you made this kind of mural that normally is bordered by screens the borders disappear so it floats here but then you added your own custom borders and then I just wanted to talk about this because I immediately noticed why did you put is this like a silver back panel for a painting on top of that mural well this is an eight and a half meter long wall that was too long and so Francois Couture did this several times in projects of his own from the 70s and so I wanted to anchor the center of the room and to give up a focal point to it so we had these custom stainless steel panels made edged in brass and that that sets up the whole room and it flows out from there you know what I just remembered reading about your your experience that you wanted originally to be an architect yes and then you segued into eventually being a designer but you're an architect in everything that you do like the way that you solved that and talked about that was an we do both interior architecture and interior design I don't think there's such the distinction here in Europe we have to do both sides of it this was my genius idea this is our pantry everything's stored away and no door is necessary it's just made out of keychain material so this room was originally part of the living room which is now divided into the dining room and in here I always like to upholster the walls in the bedroom this is an old rubelli velvet this headboard is something that we took out of a project when we redid the St. Regis in Florence and we have bed linens from Loretta Caponi with these wonderful little frogs on them and the duvet cover it's from Pottery Barn wait Eric isn't that the same fabric that I saw in your office that isn't really like an office because it's so gorgeous it feels like a home it is and it's actually the scraps of the leftovers from upholstering the office and it's sewn together in about 30 little pieces and the upholsterer wanted to kill me and look at the trim here this is trim from the 1960s I bought a little shop outside of Milan for a woman named Marcia I call her Marcia the Martian and she has all this wonderful old dead stock she's never thrown anything away because the apartment's small I like to have the living room and the bedroom open to each other but at night it's nice to be able to close them so I have these sliding doors which we did in French polish with brass detailing based on doors in Buenos Aires so this is the bathroom and it's built out of what used to be the balcony of the apartment because back in the day they had outhouses on the balcony and then they we enclosed it this was the door to the kitchen and the shower is carved out of a piece of the kitchen but it has wonderful light in here Eric I love these constant juxtapositions of this kind of you know the old world heavy damask of this tablecloth and then this looks like almost rubber the modern steel masculine you know very refined uh nature of these chairs it's a complete surprise well the chairs are Rene Arabs from 1928 and they were reissued in the 1980s by Andre Putman of course now it all makes sense again and then I was noticing these this feels like very English country side house all of a sudden well I have a thing for dogs and so whenever I find a dog I buy it which we saw in your office you're the house dog over there no house dog there dogs here and there are dogs inside of every cabinet because I don't want to look like a crazy lady and then speaking of crazy in kind of a fun way you have this bus and then I'm just noticing actually Stacy pointed out I love how she always her eyes sees things that mine don't it has a necklace she has a necklace well I was invited to a costume party in Istanbul and it was a dress up and that was part of my outfit and I bought it at the pet supply store okay I don't think we need to say anything more about you than that whole story which is like beyond it just sums everything up about your world so perfectly don't miss another video visit click on the orange q to subscribe and have quintessence virtually delivered from our doorstep to yours