Sometimes A Great Vision

It is often the case when I look at a shelter magazine that I wonder about the people whose homes represent a particular, unique, original point of view. I always wonder who they are, how they got there, what inspired them, what gave them the courage to so boldly customize their dwellings in such singular styles.


And then I realized I know one of them, my wonderful friend Jeffrey Moss, whose amazing home I visited this past week.
In his profession, Jeffrey is a filmmaker and photo stylist. In his personal life, Jeffrey is a storyteller, an imaginer with the most generous of hearts and spirits, a collector bordering on the obsessive, and an esthete with a keen eye for detail and nuance. Since I have known and loved Jeffrey for well over a decade, I knew all this already, but nothing – NOTHING – prepared me for the jolt of WOW of his home.

Of course the space itself is fabulous, a converted old building full of light and exposed brick, hidden corners and almost no closets. But it is Jeffrey’s collections that knocked me over. He has created walls of photos, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of photos, all black and white, all of people, all unknown to Jeffrey but with stories attached to them, all curated, chosen, and pinned to every inch of the wall. There’s the wall of men, another of women, boxes more edited and stowed. And then his books, and his shoes, lined up along the rungs of the staircase, celebrated as much for their beauty as for their meaning, treated like the objects of beauty that Jeffrey’s eyes see them with.

Everywhere you look there is a delicious detail, an artful touch, a considered placement, yet the home is obviously well lived in and loved, part styled and part messy, as ready for a nap as for an impromptu party. And everywhere it reeks – in a wonderful way! – Of Jeffrey and his vision, his personality, his sense of self. Not surprisingly, Jeffrey’s home is being featured in some rather prestigious shelter magazines, with Elle Decoration being the latest. Now I know that at least in one case, one of these fabulous featured homes is, indeed, the result of a courageous creative vision, that of my dear friend.