4.16.2021 | DIGS.NET 67
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Like Reid, Gerardi brought in artisans from around the world
to ensure the original aesthetics and atmosphere of the home
were maintained. "I tried to keep the house as close to what
it would have been," the homeowner points out. "And when I
restored it, I restored it with materials that went back to 1928."
He also had an 18th century fountain from the Florence
home of the late Malcom Forbes installed on the front yard.
A chandelier, dripping with Baccarat crystal, and also circa
the 18th century, was placed in the entrance room—an airy,
fitting place decked in hand-painted floor tiles. "It took eight
workers to hang it," Gerardi says of the chandelier. Original
pieces of furniture, still in the home from its founding, were
meticulously reupholstered, and he sourced the home's lush
drapes from fine silks found around the world. Cranes were
responsible for settling in silk rugs, and the home's original
Steinway was transplanted to the master suite. Committed to
restoring to home to its original splendor, Gerardi describes
how he once met a person in Rome who could expertly refresh
the details of historic villas. After purchasing this home, he
retrieved her card and hired her to come from India in order
to clean the home's al fresco painted ceilings and restore the
minor cracks in the cured plaster stone walls in that decorous
entrance room.
The most dramatic changes to the home occurred in the
bathrooms and kitchen. All were created anew under Gerardi's
watch, who kept faithful to the home's original design vernac-
ular—that of tastefully bound opulence. "I put it a stove from
Tuscany in the kitchen," he says of the refined white kitchen,
which combined two former kitchens and strikes a keen
balance between bygone elegance and uber-modern utility.
The gleaming Sub-Zero refrigerator, for instance, was custom-
ized with peekaboo glass to hint at an early 20th century
vintage. "I thought it would take seven or eight months,"
Gerardi recounts of the home's refresh. "Little did I know,"
he laughs. The home's plumbing and electrical system were
replaced with top-of-the-line modern ones, and the yard was
completely overhauled. These days the landscape is a colorful
menagerie of old-growth foliage and vivid flowers, which are set
against a cleanly manicured green lawn, much of it gated and
