June 14, 2023
Inside the Oscar-Winning Couples Manhattan Abode
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin know a thing or two about cultivating drama. The husband-and-wife filmmakers, who split their time between Wyoming and New York City, took home an Academy Award for their 2018 documentary, Free Solo, an edge-of-your-seat thriller that chronicled rock climber Alex Honnold’s epic quest to scale El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The couple also directed and produced 2021’s The Rescue, which recounted the struggle to liberate a group of young soccer players trapped in an underwater cave in Thailand. For their Manhattan abode nestled among the peaks of the Upper East Side, the intrepid auteurs, working in concert with architect Damian Zunino and designer Britt Zunino of Studio DB, have crafted an entirely different kind of story—a three-dimensional tale of family and personal passion told through color, form, texture, and pattern.
“Jimmy and I are so different—city mouse versus country mouse. He grew up in a small city in Minnesota, and I was born and raised in Manhattan. But we are both children of immigrants, with a shared Chinese heritage,” Vasarhelyi says, elaborating on the dual perspectives and affinities that inform the couple’s work. “We are storytellers, and everything here has its own story, everything has meaning,” adds Chin.
Our featured collection Flora, and a vintage rattan bed in the daughter’s room covered with D. Porthault bedding was staged perfectly together.
Alongside our other featured collection, Wabi in colorway Bone in the Wet bar.
By: Mayer Rus
Photography by: Matthew Williams
Styled by: Hilary Robertson
