Most people would be horrified to learn that the Manhattan apartment they’d just occupied—upon a friend evacuating his film editing company offices—had no closets, zero bookshelves, and a total lack of lighting. But Madeline Weeks, a stylist, creative consultant, and costume designer for film and video, is most definitely not most people. “It was this empty space with dents in the walls and leaks in the ceiling, and I was…kind of excited. I could see this was a special space.” In other words, Weeks had vision. What she chose to focus on were the perks: homey dark wood beams, vaulted ceilings, skylights; the quiet, private location at the back of the building; and an intimate terrace sandwiched between exterior walls. “It’s almost like a secret garden in a way,” says Weeks of her much-used and prized—especially for New York City—al fresco perch on NoHo’s storied Great Jones Street (past residents of the neighborhood have included Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Jean-Michel Basquiat).

A DIY project ensued, which entailed covering the oddly painted brick walls with white paint, uncovering skylights, and fashioning not only closets but also expansive bookshelves for Weeks’s significant collection. “My world is fashion and design and art and film,” she says, “so I had a huge library and that was kind of a challenge. How do you put [shelves] into the walls where it’s not going to take over the room?” She also wanted a blank wall to screen films, and after moving from GQ (where she was fashion director) to a home office last year, she had to rethink her working space. Weeks took off the “weird” fireplace mantle piece and replaced it with a very basic piece of wood she painted in the vein of Brancusi or Georgia O’Keeffe’s house. During the process, interior design friends occasionally popped by to offer ideas, and some “awesome gardener” pals gave her tips on what to grow in the partial midday sunlight of her Mediterranean-esque terrace. Still, Weeks says, “I figured it out as I went along. So, yeah, I pretty much designed it myself.”

Because of its unique position between tall buildings, Weeks’s garden gets only a few hours of great sunlight, but begonias, geraniums, ivy, and gardenias, among other botanicals, thrive. Lighting was a challenge, “because you want it to be intimate but not too dark,” so she installed lights on a dimmer. “I really liked the idea that it’s another room, so I painted it all white, and then I thought, Oh, it kind of feels like you’re in Greece—so I got a French café table and chairs from John Derian, and it’s almost like you’re at a house in the country sitting outside,” says Weeks.

Though she’s right in the mix of Manhattan, Weeks ultimately sought what some might consider an opposite aesthetic for her living space. “You walk in and there’s a sense of calm,” she says of her photography-strewn entry. “I wanted it to have that feeling of once you walk in, the street feels very far away. And I really love California. While I’m here in New York, I also wanted it to feel like a California house, with a good energy.” References included ‘60s Big Sur and her friends’ ranch in the legendary NorCal destination, plus dashes of Laurel Canyon, Santa Barbara, and Santa Monica.

Keeping the color palette cohesive and subtle while still interesting—tan, yellow, white, red, and blue—helped accomplish that tranquility, along with a smattering of cooly minimal pieces by the likes of Jasper Morrison, Knoll, and Cappellini; a record player; and dimmable lighting. “I like to play records—that warm sound of music and sense of being able to turn the lights down,” she says. Morrison’s favored materials of cork, plywood, and chrome stir Weeks, who shopped at John Derian, Cappellini, Knoll, R & Company, Beall & Bell on the North Fork of Long Island, and flea markets for her lamps, ceramics, and furniture, occasionally buying pieces from spaces created specifically for shoots she directs. Art, collected over decades, represents a vibrant array of media, subject matter, and style from mostly the second half of the 20th century. “What I love is the mix,” says Weeks, who buys from best friend Paul Kasmin’s gallery along with the photographers she knows personally (Jack Pierson, Danielle Levitt) and her “heroes,” Richard Avedon, Arthur Elgort, and Helmut Newton.

“I love very simple, modern, contemporary and within that I love those primary colors,” says Weeks, whose thoughtfully functional interiors reflect her energetic sartorial choices and also include lots of graphic white with splashes of primary colors. Her oasis of calm is a true haven, not just soothing to the soul by allowing a refuge from the outside world, but also nourishing, thanks to treasures that span art by dear friends to flea market finds that are “so special because it’s so lucky you happened to be there on that day and find that piece.” In less than 1,500 square feet Weeks created a gold mine of inspiration and interest. “A home is a living thing,” she says. "It’s alive and you’re really just a caretaker, re-curating it once in a while, like a gallery. It needs to feel alive.”

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