Juan Pablo Molyneux and the 3,000 Mile Journey

Today's story is a bit of a mind bender, but it's a good one. It starts with this apartment in New York City. The apartment itself is a in a landmark building on the Upper East Side and belongs to long time clients of internationally renowned interior designer, Juan Pablo Molyneux. This story is part before and after, part sisterhood of the traveling decor; but both parts add up to lovely and interesting interiors. 

First, the before of the Manhattan apartment. 

From everything I can find, the only room that was ever published from this Manhattan apartment was this grand salon. Finding an apartment of this size in the Big Apple doesn't come cheap. The owners shelled out $9 MILLION for the space, and probably another MILLION in applied moldings, hand gilt by Russian artists, and that Chinoiserie mural. 

The room before, I apologize for photo quality.

After. It's amazing what molding can do for a room, right? Molyneux completely changed the level of sophistication in this space with that decision alone. Let alone all the beautiful pieces that fill the space.

A view looking down into the space, showing the opening to the library and second level Juliet balcony. Here can you get a good idea of how huge this room really is, with all of the people gathered there. 

More after's from Molyneux's website: 

This room was a grand feature in the book NEW YORK SPLENDOR, which you can find here:

In 2014 Architectural Digest did a story on an ocean front home in Pebble Beach, California that Molyneux did for a long time client and friend. The owner was never named, and frankly it fell off my radar. 

Writing a blog post like this, for me, is like putting together a puzzle that sometimes I have stored away for years. Often times there are notes on the pieces, things I need to remember in the event I ever go trying to put it back together. I bought NEW YORK SPLENDOR, saw this room, and bookmarked the page. There was something about it that seemed familiar, but I wasn't sure what. 

A few days ago, while bored, I came across the real estate listing for the ocean front home in Pebble Beach that Molyneux did way back in 2014. That's when the puzzle started to fit! First, let's take a look at some of the photos (by Roger Davies) from the AD article:

Beautiful, no? Even looking at these pictures now, all in a row like this - knowing what I know - I wouldn't draw the connection. It wasn't until I saw real estate listing photographs that I started to put it all together. 

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The original estate was added onto by Molyneux and the present owners. This gallery was photographed for the listing.

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Starting to jog your memory? Anything looking familiar? 

Yep! A 3,000 mile journey for a pair of concrete orbs. But there's more! 

Remember the card table, to the right of this picture?

It too, came along for the ride. 

As did the camel. The couple still own the apartment in the city, and are attempting to liquidate the Pebble Beach property after owning it for only four years after all renovations were complete, for $16.5 MILLION dollars, although as it has been held and transferred through numerous limited liability companies, the only real thing we have to go upon for truth in ownership is the decor that made the country wide trek to live a short time in a home steps from the Pacific. 

For more on Molyneaux:

For more on the apartment in Manhattan: