View Slideshow

One evening last autumn, Peter Marino was working late at his office, which has more important Modern art than some museums. On the conference table was the scale model of an ambitious project in the Middle East, and its pure aerodynamic lines recalled the silhouette of a dhow. Marino was hoarse from a long flight, and he sounded a bit like Brando in The Godfather . In his signature motorcycle outfit—head-to-toe black leather, with rippling biceps and a major tattoo—he looked a bit like Brando in The Wild One . "I've been waiting 30 years for someone to notice the resemblance," he joked. There probably aren't many bikers (or biker-looking dudes) who design world-class buildings and interiors—there aren't even that many architects who do; it's an exclusive club. But the lordly refinement of Marino's work conveys, ironically, the same message that his tough-guy image does: alpha power.

Not long ago a stylish couple with three young children bought a 24-room apartment on Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park, and called Marino, who had designed their private jet. The gentleman is a hedge-fund manager and a champion yachtsman. The lady is much admired on the charity circuit for her flair as a hostess. "You have to educate some clients in architecture and art history, but not these two," Marino says. "His taste is impeccably sober and European. She is more adventurous, with an intuitive feeling for color and fabric that reflects her heritage. They were great foils for each other and for me. I never had to convince them, as I often do, that trendiness is a trap. When you're making this kind of investment, you should aim to create something imperishable."

The apartment had belonged to the British consul, and the queen, apparently, had been a guest there. Consuls, though, come and go at Her Majesty's pleasure, and however royally they entertain, they are, essentially, campers in government housing. Marino's first reaction to the space gives new meaning to the expression "gut instinct." "It was really quite tragic," he says, with a hint of glee. "At one end was a warren of servants' quarters. You made your way through a maze of corridors to a state dining room with all the charm of a bank vault. More corridors, and you reached two beautifully proportioned salons that overlook the park. But both rooms had identical, ersatz-English paneling and fake fireplaces, and they were separated by a solid wall—sort of like naughty siblings."

Watch out when Marino revs the engines of his great demo machine: "We tore the whole place apart," he says, "even blowing out exterior walls in the library and the dining room." (The holes in the brick were fitted with smart French doors, each set opening to a planted balcony that overlooks the interior courtyard.) "Blowing out" is a favorite Marinoism, and he also "blew out" the closets at the end of a long, windowless hall to create a "spatial hinge" between the public wing and the family quarters. This charming, lighthearted space—really just an elbow room—has a fresh, blue-and-white palette; a settee and armchairs by the Vienna Secessionist designer Kolo Moser; a fanciful chandelier of the same period; and a vibrant abstraction by Caio Fonseca.

Classical music, and, in particular, modern classical music, is Marino's passion (he chairs a philanthropy that supports unknown musicians), and he thinks about architecture like a composer. The entrance gallery sets the tone for the décor the way an overture introduces the themes of an opera. Marino paneled the walls in honed French limestone, and when a visitor touches its surface, supposing stupidly that it's painted, he looks insulted: "You will never find trompe l'oeil in a Marino interior—I'm a monster for authenticity." Gossamer curtains billow at the long windows, and between them is an important early boulle commode. The gold-and-white-marble floor mirrors the glow from antique Genoese lanterns of silver and tortoiseshell. A pair of custom banquettes are upholstered in sable-colored silk velvet and overlaid with panels of Sumatran embroidery. A stark painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat—a black head with a striped torso in primary colors—strikes a defiant note of modernity. It's all pure dazzle, pure attitude—and pure alpha power.

The project took a full two years, in part because the opulent masonry and finishes were so labor-intensive: anthracite lacquer in the library; embossed leather paneling, overleafed with silver gilt, in the dining room; copper-glazed raffia in a vestibule off the master suite; and porcini-brown silk on the bedroom walls. Many of the fabrics are sumptuous, geometric ikats and metallic brocades handwoven for the apartment in Asia. A painting by Jasper Johns inspired the silk embroidery on several chairs. Arte povera leaves Marino cold, and one can't accuse him of frugality when it comes to furnishings. Sculptural lamps, tables and accessories by contemporary artists like Yves Klein and Garouste and Bonetti are juxtaposed with French and Russian antiques of palace quality that send one scurrying home to Google their auction history. The "killer," as Marino puts it, with satisfaction, "is a super-important five-star Boulle armoire" with ormolu mounts and marquetry of tortoiseshell, pewter and mother-of-pearl. (It dwarfed the Sun King by at least two feet.)

The essence of chic, however, is nonchalance, and Marino is keenly aware that when luxury is too conspicuous, it can become florid or kitschy. The discipline and clarity of these interiors owe a good deal to his admiration for the early Modernists. In the living room, a shagreen low table that seems to evoke Jean-Michel Frank anchors a seating area free of clutter. A muscular painting by Roy Lichtenstein injects a jolt of absinthe into a volcanic palette. The walls are chalky, and the floor is covered by a silk rug whose abstract pattern and organic tones suggest camouflage. "I love the play of dark and light surfaces in alternating spaces," he says, "and the tension between grandeur and understatement." Grandeur and understatement: That paradox perfectly understates Marino's feat.