Authentic Interiors: Rooms That Tell Stories

“As no two stories are the same, the spaces I create are as individual as the DNA of their inhabitants,” writes interior designer Gorrivan in his distinctive debut, which details how he designed 14 homes to reflect his clients’ personalities. Taking readers inside a Brooklyn waterfront apartment, Gorrivan notes he installed two complementary sofas (“one salmon-hued with curved lines, and one more linear, in horizontally striped grays”) in the living room to represent the “devoted yet individualistic” owners and their “fashion-forward sartorial style.” For a Brazilian couple’s residence in Manhattan’s Sherry-Netherland Hotel, Gorrivan embraced the “exuberant palette of Rio’s Carnival,” selecting aquamarine lacquered walls for the living room and leopard-print seats for the dining table. Elsewhere, Gorrivan shows the “lush, spring-green grass cloth” he put on the bedroom walls of a Toronto townhouse as a nod to the owners’ love of the Bahamas and the “antique marble floor tiles” and “vintage-style porcelain tub” he chose for the bathroom of a country home owned by “architectural enthusiasts interested in preservation.” Though a few of the design choices border on garish (the busy entryway to a Park Avenue apartment features floor to ceiling mirrors, lilac molding, patterned wallpaper on the ceiling, “a pedestalled statue of Venus and a crystal chandelier”), Gorrivan largely succeeds in indulging his “love of rich saturated colors” without overwhelming the space. The occasional misstep aside, this provides much to savor. (Mar.)