Today, AD is welcomed by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos to tour their sophisticated New York home. When the Live with Kelly and Mark hosts moved into their Upper East Side townhouse over a decade ago, the couple had a vision of 1920s and ‘30s French glamor adapted for modern family living. With the help of AD100 designer William Sofield, the couple turned their home into an Art Deco masterpiece, full of treasures found on a trip to the antique markets in Paris. After twelve fabulous years of raising their family in this home, the couple has no plans of leaving and are ready for a new chapter in their home, just them. “I don’t want to sound morbid,” says Ripa, “but they’ll have to carry me out of here feetfirst because I have gotten good and comfortable in this house.”See more of the couple's townhouse hereShop furniture and decor inspired by the celebrity couple’s home:https://www.architecturaldigest.com/shopping/kelly-and-mark-open-door
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hey A.D. Hi. Where the Consuelos is. Welcome to our favorite place on earth. Come on in, come on in.
00:23Welcome to our cigar lounge. My cigar lounge. My cigar lounge. Yeah. Otherwise known as bar
00:29five. It's on the fifth floor. Well, the impulse was we wanted it to feel like 1970s New York City
00:36meets 1920s Paris. It was a pleasure working with Bill Sofield. He said, well, why don't we go to
00:40Paris and go to the flea markets and get a bunch of stuff for your house? I think that's where we
00:44really fell in love. This became the hangout room in the entire house. And it was initially
00:49thought of as just Mark's space where he would go to smoke cigars because he had a special
00:54ventilation system put in here that sucks the smoke out of the sky, allegedly. You smell cigars?
01:01No, you can't. It never smells like cigars in here, which is crazy because I know a lot of
01:05cigars have been smoked in this room. Yeah, for sure. Sporting events are watched. Games are played.
01:10Cocktail parties. Everything happens. And the design inspiration, we saw this Yves Saint Laurent
01:14documentary called Le Morphe. And I just love the color of the paint somewhere on a wall. That's how
01:19we started with the room. And we found this table. The best find. I think it's from the 70s and it's
01:25like really old school fiber optics. But we had to have the glass replaced because the glass was so
01:32fragile from it being so old and so many, I think, parties. There's a lot of etchings in the glass.
01:39So we had the glass replaced. Yeah. A lot of Formula One inspired photography because I love Formula One.
01:46It's the ultimate guy's room. I don't come up here often, but when I do, I always
01:50say to myself, I should spend more time up here. It's so pretty. Check this out.
01:56Cigars.
02:00A little humidor. Okay, just so you know, I've lived here as long as he has and I did not know that was there.
02:07This is our bedroom. I think the feeling for the bedroom was always like when we travel to Europe or
02:19we go to a beautiful hotel, the feeling that you get there, it's sexy, it's peaceful, it's quiet.
02:26That was the feeling we were going for in the bedroom. I really feel at home here. Just about
02:31every light fixture and everything you see in this room has come from the flea markets in Paris.
02:38Something more interesting than just us happened to all of these beautiful pieces and we're glad
02:45to be able to give them new homes and new lives. And don't think we're crazy about putting a mirror
02:51in front of our bed. It hides a TV. We don't stare at ourselves. We watch Judge Judy.
02:57I remember the gold leaf at the headboard took, gosh, they had like these elves in here,
03:02just rubbing and rubbing and laying more down, rubbing and rubbing. And we watched them do it.
03:07But we kept thinking it was perfect. Every time. It's perfect. Don't touch it.
03:12These two, I guess we would call them like little chandeliers. They're a pair but they
03:15came separately and we got someone to match the fringe on both and it just took such a long time.
03:20This is where I spend most of my time. I do a lot of work in here. I wrote my book right there
03:28at this desk on that chair and I had to have it reupholstered.
03:32Yes.
03:32Because I wore the fabric out of the chair in the shape of my rear end. That's how much time
03:39I spent there. Also in winter, spring, summer, fall, it's a beautiful view. And then I love
03:45these pictures of the kids because these are kind of the ages they were when we moved in here.
03:48Oh yeah. The artwork that we have in the hallway is from an artist named Mark Quinn. By the way,
03:53those are our kids' eyes.
03:54And he photographs the eye and he paints the eye but from the inside looking out. So it's not a
04:03print. It's not a photograph.
04:05You know, they don't live here anymore. So when we leave our bedroom,
04:08like it feels like they're still with us.
04:10I could stare at my kids' eyes forever. I just think they're great. And now even though the
04:14kids are gone, we still share a bathroom and a closet. And people always find that very
04:19remarkable. Why don't one of you take one of the kids' bathrooms and closet? And we've always
04:26shared a bathroom and a closet.
04:27And we always will.
04:28And I don't think we will ever not share a bathroom and a closet. I just feel like
04:33you and I live well together. It's also forced us to be very diligent about what we buy,
04:41wearing what we have, not being wasteful. It keeps you honest. We've moved several times in
04:47our lives, but no matter where we go, for me, this is my forever home. When I walked in here,
04:53I was like, this is the final place where I will live. I love this house so much.
05:04All right. Welcome to our living room.
05:06This would be the informal, formal living room. We have had so many great parties in this room.
05:13It presents as fancy, but it really is super comfortable and very casual.
05:19If we have an important meeting and someone's coming to our house, like a business meeting.
05:23Where we try to look adult.
05:24Come in. And then I do this.
05:30And then they're trapped.
05:31We make them sit on the sofa, which is like a chic, shiny velvet. And then.
05:37We watch them slide.
05:38We watch them slide. Kind of throws them off a little bit. At the end of the day,
05:42we're still us. So it's going to be goofy. And the fireplace is.
05:46Louis XVI, I think. And during Christmas, we actually have that middle part of that
05:51couch removed. We spread out the chairs and we put a Christmas tree right in that window.
05:55And this entire room becomes a Christmas room.
05:58And the tapestries.
05:59They are works of art. They really are.
06:01There is a TV in here. It's behind that beautiful mirror there that just turns on.
06:06These guys are a hit, especially when we have little kids come over.
06:09Oh, yeah.
06:10We've had to glue a couple of those ears back on because they've been dropped.
06:13The late, great Gloria Vanderbilt gave us as a housewarming present,
06:18one of her paintings over the fireplace, which I actually think she did with pastels.
06:23She just said it looked like us.
06:26We also have a photo of her when she just completed it in her studio.
06:30Yeah.
06:30So it just means a lot. You know, I always feel like she's watching over us.
06:40All right. This is our dining room. Big family meals, dinner parties.
06:45Lots of Sunday Chinese food with our friends.
06:48Yep.
06:48Which leads us to the best part.
06:51You love a lazy Susan.
06:52Because I am lazier than most Susans.
06:56But I didn't necessarily want to see a lazy Susan.
06:59Check this out. Tell me that's not the greatest.
07:02It is so great.
07:03When the rice and the food gets stuck.
07:05Flip that up. Pull it out.
07:06And you can lift it and you can vacuum.
07:08Vacuum.
07:09Ball bearings and a groove and you've got a lazy Susan.
07:12I knew I needed an office. It didn't need to be big.
07:15And so I found space in the back there.
07:18And so we turned that into my office. I get a view of the garden.
07:21I can take some calls.
07:22And it's also a little butler's pantry bar for the dining room.
07:26So this chandelier, extraordinary, cultural, truly beautiful.
07:31This came from Vienna.
07:33And Bill said, if one third of it arrives intact, we'll be thrilled.
07:41And the entire thing arrived.
07:43There wasn't a beat out of place. It was really a miracle.
07:47And you know this, I'm going to tell you the kind of guy that Bill is.
07:50Because he is a very unique person.
07:53We were with him in Paris and our youngest son came with us and he loved escargot.
08:00And Bill, I think, found it quite remarkable that a little kid that was,
08:04you know, nine years old was eating snails.
08:07And so Bill bought this for Joaquin for the house.
08:10They're escargot toothpicks that you can pick your snails out of the shells.
08:16And I just found that to be like indicative of who he is.
08:25Come on into the kitchen.
08:27Every room is the heart and soul, but this actually is.
08:30Yeah, it's nice. It's just off the garden.
08:32If we ever want to go outside and have a cup of coffee.
08:34So we're very serious about our coffee.
08:35We're fussy coffee drinkers.
08:37You can see we have multiple machines for multiple things.
08:40This is the snack closet.
08:42It's the pantry.
08:42Come home from work.
08:44No, but it is more than a pantry.
08:46It is a snack closet because most pantries have things that you would cook with.
08:52This one just has snacks.
08:54We come home from work.
08:55We immediately go there.
08:57We get a snack.
08:58We sit down here.
08:59We finish up whatever work we have to do for the day.
09:02And it was fun finding like all the stone and going to the yards with Bill.
09:07You guys went to quarries.
09:09Quarries, yeah.
09:10And you were talking to me about how it had a singular vein.
09:14Well, this vein, you could see that there was a shift.
09:16There was like a seismic shift here that used to be like that.
09:19And something happened.
09:20And all these lines are just a little bit off.
09:22Or they cracked it and they just put it together wrong.
09:24I'm not sure which one it is.
09:26Oh, and I dug this picture up to show you guys because we were talking about when Bill
09:30took us to the Paris flea markets and he sent me this photo.
09:35I tried to convince Mark to buy a giant disco ball.
09:39And he said it was just too on the nose.
09:41Also, our fairly not quite opaque, mildly translucent cabinets keep us honest.
09:49We are forced to be organized.
09:51There were so many discussions about poles for the doorknobs and for the drawers and
09:57for the cabinetry.
09:59I did not realize that those would be separate purchases.
10:03Those would be extra.
10:04That was you and Bill going to every pole.
10:08Yeah, we looked at all the poles and they do match the ones in the bar and the cigar
10:12lounge.
10:12Those are nice and sturdy and they were nice on the hand as well.
10:15Yeah, they're everywhere.
10:16Oh, yeah.
10:16One thing we did here that I thought was cool is he wrapped this.
10:21Otherwise, the kitchen hoods are just kind of like industrial.
10:24So we plastered the kitchen hood.
10:27Love the shape of it.
10:28We went from living in a loft downtown in Soho.
10:31Everything was like this.
10:33Very industrial.
10:34Very industrial stuff to plastering my oven hood.
10:39Yeah, having arches departure for you.
10:41Arches.
10:41And when I saw things like with round shapes, I'm like, what is that?
10:44That was not your cup of tea.
10:45We used to like austere, minimalist spaces.
10:49And then I think moving uptown changed you.
10:52Yeah.
10:53Turned you into a gentleman.
10:56I cook, but you're the griller.
10:58Yeah, caveman stuff I can do, but she's a fabulous cook.
11:03No, I'm not a fabulous cook.
11:05There's a total difference in those two statements.
11:08I do great because he's hungry.
11:10Although I will say when you see the eggs in the magazine, those are stun eggs.
11:14I did not make those eggs.
11:17My eggs are gorgeous.
11:19They are really pretty.
11:31All right, AD, that's it.
11:32That's our tour.
11:33Hope you enjoyed it.
11:34Come see us again.
11:36Please.
11:36We're going to go change into sweatpants.
11:40See you.
11:40Bye.