West Village Walk-Up Contains Teddy Roosevelt's Gold Silk Curtains

A collector named Brian Coleman has spent years filling a West 10th Street tenement apartment with antique glass, trompe l'oeil murals, and at least one set of curtains with a presidential provenance.

The apartment is a fifth-floor walk-up in a West Village tenement building on West 10th Street.
Designer and collector Brian Coleman installed trompe l'oeil murals throughout the unit to simulate architectural grandeur the building does not structurally possess.
The curtains, described as gold silk, are attributed to Theodore Roosevelt and were acquired through the antiques market.
Antique stained and leaded glass features throughout, sourced from estate sales and demolition salvage.
The finished interior reads, by most accounts, more Victorian mansion than five-story walkup.

A tenement apartment on West 10th Street in the West Village has been converted, over a period of years, into something that does not resemble a tenement apartment on West 10th Street in the West Village.

The unit belongs to Brian Coleman, a designer and collector whose Curbed profile, published this month, details an interior built from trompe l'oeil murals, salvaged antique glass, and acquisitions that include a set of gold silk curtains attributed to Theodore Roosevelt.

The murals, painted directly onto walls and ceilings, simulate architectural features — moldings, recesses, archways — that the building's actual construction does not include. The antique glass, leaded and stained, came from estate liquidations and buildings scheduled for demolition.

The Roosevelt curtains arrived through the antiques trade. Coleman told Curbed they are genuine. The building has no doorman, no elevator, and five flights of stairs.

Curbed describes the finished effect as closer to a Victorian mansion than a Manhattan rental-class walkup, which is more or less the point. Coleman has lived there for decades.

The listing status of the apartment is not currently on record.