Michael Smith News>Elle Decor

The Demand for his services is such that Los Angeles - based decorator Michael S. Smith finds himself aloft almost as much as Ryan Bingham, the high flier of Up In The Air played by George Clooney (who is, just coincidentally, reported to be one of Smith's heavy weight clients.) Due to his increasingly bi-coastal business, Smith has maintained a pied - a` - terre in New York for nearly a decade. But by last year, his work on the East Coast was becoming so extensive it seemed time to find a real Manhattan home. \r\n\r\nFortuitously, Smith heard that an apartment he had long admired from afar was on the market.He first noticed the penthouse duplex atop a venerable 1920's co-op while working in an adjoining building. "I kind of became obsessed with it," he says. "It was situated in such an interesting way -- with real beautiful outdoor spaces." Smith, a provenance maven, also was intrigued by thoughts of the apartments previous owners, Osborn 'Oz' Elliot, a former editor of Newsweek, and his wife, Inger, founder of the fabrics company China Seas. Supposedly, the uber-urbane pair were the models for Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, the protagonists of their friend John Guare's play Siz Degrees of Separation. The apartments ballroom like living room, giving out onto a spectacular wrap around terrace, had been the scene of many a swell party. "It was the center of a certain intellectual and social world, which I found fascinating," Smith says.\r\n\r\nThe remainder of the space had less charm and presented more of a challenge. Originally, the penthouse had been a triplex, but its lowest floor had been sold off at some point, and a warren of halls and room shad been carved out of what remained. Nonetheless, Smith moved in immediately with his boyfriend, James Costos, an HBO executive whose job also requires him to divide his time between coasts.\r\n\r\nSmith opted to transform what had been a dining room in to the master bedroom, where he installed a spectacular German-silver bed from Jaipur, India. The luxe Fortuny cotton used for the curtains and 19th century Dufour wallpaper panels of exotic Incan scenes give the air of a gentleman explorer's lair. Upstairs, what had been the master bedroom was made in to a guest room. This has left him without a proper dining room, but not for long. He plan's to turn a maid's room in to a gilded-and -trellised Chinese box where he can entertain.\r\n\r\nAnd entertaining is clearly important to him. In fact, Smith knack for merging warmth and comfort with elegance was one factor that led Michelle Obama to choose him as the decorator for the private quarters of the White House. "Michael shares my vision for creating a family friendly feel," she said when the appointment was announced.\r\n\r\nSmith feels the assignment is going remarkably smoothly. \r\n\r\nConsidering that he is upending his life in Los Angeles - he recently sold the redbrick Georgian style villa he spent 5years painstakingly rebuilding in Bel Air -- its a good thing Smith finally has a real home on the East Coast. "With its light and outdoor spaces, the apartment just makes it a pleasure to come to New York," he says. Flan and Ouisa Kittredge undoubtedly would approve.