Although her focus is on interiors, Haleh was also involved in the design of her home’s façade, seeking symmetry and drawing on the features she so adores—classical qualities with a decidedly French influence. Juliet balconies are wrapped in balustrades filled with scrolling wrought iron on the ground level of the façade, contrasting with classical forms on the second. French doors with eyebrow mullions and an imposing entrance portico reflect her formative years as a student in France, where she lived from the age of 11 to 17. Her school arranged trips to Versailles, the Louvre and other notable architectural icons. “I am so grateful that I had an opportunity to live there and learn the culture and study the art,” she says.
Thus began her love affair with all things French, including domes. “All my life, my passion was to have a dome,” Haleh says. Inside the Niroo home, the expanse of the foyer and the double, curved staircase draws the eye 35 feet upwards to a dome and a neo-Greco-style mural depicting images of the sun, fire, water, figures and floating puti—imagery typical of the Renaissance. Tucked into the mural is the likeness of the family’s dog, Polo, an amusing touch in a seriously decorated space. Barrel vaults flank this hemispherical form.
“We wanted your eyes to come from the floor to the ceiling and the beautiful art,” says Haleh. At the top of the stairs, fully visible from the foyer, is a half-dome. Haleh creates “all these little exciting and unique treatments, all with symmetry,” she explains. Surfaces in this home are sculpted; this designer embellishes the space with architectural features and enhances them with gilt, paint and glaze.
In the foyer, columns faux-finished as aged marble stand out against the caramel-hued walls painted in a subtle pearl finish. A broad niche highlights an entrance to the library and two small arched niches painted with flower motifs flank the opening to the grand salon. Deftly applied moldings are defined by gilt.
Opulence and ornamentation often generate clutter, a pitfall Haleh avoids. “The way we do our space planning is very critical,” she says. She attributes this to her knowledge and practice of feng shui. “We do not clutter a space so [much that] energy can’t even flow into it. I want to be able to create a space that is welcoming, to make sure energy flows inside the house.”
As she walks under the staircase and into the grand salon, Haleh explains, “I wanted to create a space within a space. This room is only minimally separated from the foyer, defined by the change of form in the ceiling and the change in pattern of marble tile on the floor.
In the grand salon, Louis XVI and Empire-style furnishings
are upholstered in silk damask and blue velvet.
Here, Haleh mixes Louis XVI and Empire-style furnishings. Tempered blues and golds define a palette that she uses throughout the house. Accessories are minimal; among her favorites are two modern Lalique panthers. The faux finishes on the bases of the columns emulate the black and gold marble border on the foyer and grand salon floors, while the columns themselves mimic the floors’ lighter Botticino marble.
As she opens the doors to her dining room, Haleh says, “You feel like you have walked into Versailles, literally.” Gold leaf reflects off the facets of crystal. Sumptuous window treatments dip, billow and drape “like a ball gown,” she notes.
The dining room's dramatic high ceiling plays up the crown
molding embellished in gold leaf, which gives way to a French
curved soffit in the ceiling.
The caramel shade of the foyer carries into the dining room, touched with green to blend with the gold. Tinctures of pink accent the rug, window treatments and the ceiling. The room’s dramatic high ceiling plays up the crown molding embellished in gold leaf, which gives way to a French curved soffit in the ceiling. “Repetition of rhythm, form, balance and scale. I try to accomplish that in every room,” she says. More gold leaf is lavished on the dining table; Haleh repeats its curves in the cornices surrounding the windows. Medallions, ribbons, rosettes and acanthus leaves adorn the furnishings. A rosewood border inlay contrasts with a light-toned Brazilian teak floor.
In more casual spaces such as the family room, the gilt of the molding gives way to a depth-defining glaze. Upholstered chairs and a sofa invite the homeowners to curl up with a book or watch television. Chairs have quilted velvet arms, carved chenille
The designer calls the adjacent kitchen her “heart.” A centerpiece in the room is a fireplace raised to a height that allows her to see it over the island as she cooks. Storage is abundant in cabinetry with moldings and paneling that would be equally appropriate in a library. The island is topped with a dark walnut butcher block. “To me, it is the focal point of my kitchen. I cut vegetables on it. The more you abuse it, the nicer it is going to get,” she says. Refrigerator drawers in the island hold vegetables and a small sink makes preparation simple and quick. She just turns around to the range for cooking; spices and condiments are close at hand in pull-out shelving flanking the range. A Renaissance-style painting adorns the back-splash tile.
A Renaissance-style painting adorns the backsplash tile in
the kitchen. Opposite the range, refrigerator drawers in the
island and a small sink make preparation simple and quick.
Part of the kitchen, yet separate, the casual eating area is defined by its location in a turret—with a domed ceiling, its bronze-toned embellishments echoing the bronze chandeliers. Emphasizing the roundness of the dome, Haleh selected formal balloon shades adorned with light-catching, crystal beads and arched cornices upholstered in damask.
The Niroos built a bit of intrigue into their home with a secret door that leads to the master suite from David’s office located off the foyer. Located on the main floor, the master bedroom suite boasts an abundance of closet space, both his and hers, plus a spacious master bath. Bookshelves conceal the entrance to Haleh’s meditation room.
An 18th-century French reproduction bed with a canopy
furnishes the master bedroom.
In the bedroom, an antique-silk-lined canopy with festoon detailing cascades down from the ceiling toward the bed. “The bedroom is very sensuous,” she says. “Your bedroom and bathroom have to be your sanctuary. My clients work 90 miles an hour. When they come home, they need a place where they can just be content and happy.”
Throughout her home, Haleh has lavished attention on the ceilings. In one of the guest rooms, Haleh proves the point; she recently painted the ceiling terracotta red. “To me, the ceiling is so important and everybody leaves it out,” she says. “If I had left it white, it would have been so empty.” In this comfortably elegant room, silk Dupioni drapes ascend to the crown molding to accentuate the height of the room.
On the lower level of the home, Haleh has a spacious office suite. There is an exercise room and game room, a favorite spot for the couple’s teenage son. Outside, a rear terrace spans the width of the house, overlooking the property’s pool, gardens and two tennis courts.
This opulent home reflecting design pulled from the courts of France and Western Europe “brings the old back with the true definition of classical form: scale, proportion and symmetry of columns and moldings.” Haleh concludes, “I can never get tired of classical.”
The private elevator in this luxury building ascends to the eighteenth floor, the door opens and there stands William S. Cohen and his wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, smiling warmly and welcoming us into their elegant aerie, with 6,700 square feet of interior space, 3,000 square feet of exterior terrace and panoramic views all around.
For this former Senator and Secretary of Defense and his wife, a former model, television personality, media consultant and now, author, condominium life means ease of living. Moving from their single-family home in McLean turned out to be relatively painless as furnishings easily translated from one home to the other.
Both were long-term high-rise people: Cohen’s days on the Hill were spent in an Arlington high-rise and, when the two were married, he moved into her building at 701 Pennsylvania Avenue. As his stint at the Pentagon came to a close, he yearned for a house, one with a yard and a pool. (See Home & Design, Late Winter, 2003).
Like most, it needed constant attention—a gardener, a plumber, a roofer…and the list went on.
Now, as principal in a fast-growing consulting firm, The Cohen Group, he travels almost 70 percent of the time. And Langhart Cohen was uncomfortable. “I had never lived in a place where somebody could knock on the door and there was just a piece of wood between me and a person,” she explains. Both she and her husband are highly visible personalities, possible lightning rods for reactive people, the likelihood of which is complicated by their combined cultures: Cohen is Irish-Jewish and Langhart Cohen is of mixed race, black and white. (Her recent memoir, From Rage to Reason: My Life in Two Americas, touches upon her coming of age in racially troubled times, as well as the challenges of interracial marriage.) As evident in their new home, the Cohens have defined their joint aesthetic as well as they have embraced their different backgrounds and cultures.
As the Cohens usher us into their home, a painting of a crouching young Vietnamese woman hangs in a niche surrounded by a complementary green decorative paint treatment. Very few pieces in the residence are new, explains Langhart Cohen as she leads her guests into the living room, the expansive urban view lightly veiled by walls of sheer draperies. There are flashes of the familiar from McLean: chests with mirrors of guilt; the white damask sofa and opposing club chairs; the
Oriental rugs. Yet, the arrangement reads very differently. This is a larger, more formal room with more breathing space around the conversation area. Pilasters separate this large living room from a smaller version on the left, an ideal spot for a private conversation. Drinks are served here during more intimate gatherings.
Furnishings and Oriental rugs from their previous home in
McLean fit perfectly in the double-room living area.
Cohen prefers this space to the larger room. Lightweight armchairs deftly placed along the walls in both rooms can be pulled in either direction for spontaneous conversational groupings.
From the living rooms, a vestibule opens to the dining room and the library. Furnishings from the house take on new life in the dining room, where the urban skyline views give way to a dense carpet of green treetops. A roundtable is essential for dining, notes Langhart Cohen; it equalizes her guests and facilitates conversation. She finds her table seats ten most comfortably during the couple’s frequent dinner parties that host luminary from government, corporate and diplomatic circles.
The couple hosts frequent guests from government and
diplomatic circle in the dining room.
“Before dessert, we like to talk about issues of the day: it could be art, it could be politics, all sorts of issues that are topical,” explains Langhart Cohen. “Everybody is very bright, so my table is not just a dining table; it is a learning table, a social table.”
After dinner, guests head back to the living room, or if a casual camaraderie has developed during dinner, to the adjacent library—a misnomer for this room without books. Shelves are filled with memorabilia Cohen has collected over the years and Celadon wares each of them brought to their marriage, plus pieces they have acquired together. It is a comfortable room with a chenille sofa and chairs in muted, green tones, all from the family room in the McLean house.
“My spirit is drawn to Asian—my consciousness, my understanding of who I am and my origin come from my African side,” Janet Langhart Cohen explains.
Beyond the library is the solarium with another stupendous wrap-around view, topped by a clerestory window decked in faux-painted ivy. Throughout the home, the expansive view dominates each room, but here it is breathtaking, an expanse of vista that takes the eye through suburban miles, beyond the Mormon temple. It is a room for casual dining, but with the two collaborating on an upcoming book, this inspiring room takes on a different focus. Together they are writing about their “parallel” experiences in coping with “some of America’s social ‘isms,’” Langhart Cohen reports.
On the Furnishings and Oriental rugs from their previous home in McLean fit perfectly in the double-room living area. terrace, apples are growing on espaliered trees; pots of flowers thrive in the sunlight. The terrace encircles the home with living space for the enjoyment of morning coffee or dinner by starlight. Outside the master bedroom is a special garden, a tribute to the couple’s deceased dog, Lucky.
Furnishings and Oriental rugs from their previous home in McLean
fit perfectly in the double-room living area.
The Poggenpohl kitchen is enviable, an efficient and beautiful space with bird’s-eye maple cabinetry, located adjacent to the media room/family room (the family being Bill, she and Lucy, their Maltese, explains Langhart Cohen).
The Cohens eat breakfast and dinner in this room at a small table in front of the window, the view in one direction and the television for the latest news in the other. The room exudes African influences.
“My spirit is drawn to Asian—my consciousness, my understanding of who I am and my origin come from my African side,” she explains. Her treasures are two gifts from Nelson Mandela: a very small doll, barely four inches tall, and a signed copy of his biography. Neither a connoisseur nor curator, she demurs, she has chosen pieces that make her think of Africa. “I lived with the Masai for a while,” she notes while working on a TV series in Kenya.
Then there are private spaces: a master bedroom suite with commodious closets and a large terrace, a study/music room for Langhart Cohen—she plays the flute and her husband plays the keyboard—plus a gym. Cohen has both an office and a separate study. In his office, he works; in his study, he decompresses. “His study is his sanctuary, his lair,” Langhart Cohen explains.
“This is where I come at three in the morning to read,” he says.
More simple and secure than their former home in McLean, this new residence meets the couple’s needs on many levels, both as a place to entertain and a place to unwind. “While we were in the other house, I was shopping for a house I had never met. Everything goes better here,” says Langhart Cohen.
“Houses are like people. This one has energy; it loves us back.”
Contributing editor Barbara Karth resides in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Photographer Bob Narod is based in Sterling, Virginia
A painting of a Vietnamese woman greets visitors in the
entrance vestibule.
The library is the perfect setting for intimate conversations.
