Over the past few years Max Zinser has built a reputation as a guy with a feel for the zeitgeist, a designer whose stage sets, pop-up shops, and retail stores grab your attention with full force. For a Raf Simons runway show, he created a set oozing with decadence, featuring overturned wine bottles and piles of ripe fruit. For a Goop shop in Montecito, California, he painted the walls high-gloss periwinkle, resulting in a space practically pulsating with good vibes. Meanwhile, for cult beauty brand Glossier’s SoHo shop, he sparked an Instagram sensation using pink carpet and yards of magenta curtain. “New and fresh are what clients most often ask me for,” says Zinser.
When it came to furnishing his own home, however, “new and fresh” were the last things from his mind. Located on the parlor floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn, the apartment that he shares with his boyfriend, fashion designer Julian Louie, has the quiet, eclectic feel of a home thoughtfully assembled over time. The soaring 13-foot ceilings, white plaster walls with moldings, and well-worn parquet floor provide a classic backdrop to furniture and objects that feel more personal than branded; more collected than one-clicked. “We don’t even feel like we ‘decorated’ this apartment,” says Zinser, who recently exited KMZ NYC, the company he cofounded in 2017, to start his own solo studio, ZINSER. “It was about letting the architecture speak for itself and filling the space with the things we love.”
A Willy Vanderperre print hangs above a midcentury partners desk that the couple found at Holler & Squall in Brooklyn. The chair is Jean Prouvé and the ceramics (on the floor and on the desk) are by Louie’s late grandfather, Norman Hoberman.
Louie trained as an architect before switching to fashion design and served as an equal partner in the low-key decorating process. As he explains, one of the activities the couple have always enjoyed together is mooning over beautiful furniture and art—whether at the Chelsea flea market, the vintage furniture shops of Hudson, New York, or their favorite downtown dealers. “We realized pretty early on that we are attracted to similar objects,” he says. “We both like unique things with soul and personality. And we love that sense of discovery in finding them.”
Indeed, their home is short on anything shiny, new, or instantly recognizable. The living room is anchored by a showstopping marble mantel beautifully carved with figures of putti, grapes, and flowers. It makes an ideal surface for displaying some of the couple’s favorite objects, including ceramics by Louie’s late grandfather Norman Hoberman, an architect and artist. And while the room feels unstudied, it’s perfectly balanced in its contrasts: the soaring potted palm versus the humble floor meditation chair; the cluttered stacks of books and magazines versus the stretches of bare parquet; the rococo marblework versus the pair of Pastoe FM60 cube lounge chairs in all their glorious 1980s geometry.
Many of the apartment’s most striking pieces are ones they found together, like the unusual midcentury partners desk, designed to seat two individuals side by side, which fits neatly into a niche in their dining room. “We love its form but rarely actually sit at it,” admits Zinser.
Other pieces—like their plywood dining room table, which seats six—they made for themselves. “We designed it for Julian’s old apartment when we couldn’t find a table he liked,” says Zinser. (Their inspiration was Donald Judd’s plywood furniture.) Louie also custom-made the artwork that hangs above the living room mantel, sizing it so that it would fit perfectly within the frame of molding.
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And though both Zinser and Louie have an undeniable weakness for pedigreed midcentury furniture (see: the highly collectible 1960 Pierre Jeanneret Box Chairs designed for Punjab University, Chandigarh), they’re also not above a good, cheap find. That paper lantern hanging in the dining room? “We bought it at Pearl River Mart for $25 and we absolutely love it,” says Zinser. “We wouldn’t switch it out for anything.”