ELLE

July 2010

…It was a specific piece of much-loved vintage Americana –an enormous HOTEL sign purchased from Sonrisa Furniture, an architectural savage store in Los Angeles –that inspired the design of this NoHo loft, which Crow purchased in 1998 from “a well-known French painter” and his family. “I wanted to make sure that we created a place for that sign,” she says, explaining the process of working with New York-based designer Elizabeth Roberts, who is known for her minimalist approach. “It became a reference point for the materials and palette we used, such as the industrial-looking light fixtures and the concrete floor in the bathroom.”

Crow’s other main objective was to maintain a sense of openness “so that [the space] felt like a loft and not a bunch of rooms” –something they achieved by installing frosted, barn-style sliding glass doors ion the two bedrooms –while also imbuing it with an atmosphere of homey simplicity. So while there’s no shortage of rarefied details (the photographs hanging in the brick-walled hall include images by Diane Arbus and David Bailey, as well as a childhood photo of Crow’s onetime boyfriend Owen Wilson taken by his mother, Richard Avedon protégé Laura Wilson), the balance is firmly tipped toward cozy domesticity. The club chairs in the living room are upholstered with tea-stained antique flour sacks that Crow collected herself’ the dishware is a hodgepodge of mismatched plates and Starbucks coffee mugs; and she still uses a circ=1950s O’Keefe & Merritt stove that she bought for her first apartment in St. Louis, back when she was a schoolteacher. “It goes wherever I go,” she says, patting it fondly. “It’s built like a Buick.”

…Though Crow’s primary residence is now her Nashville farm … this loft is still terra firma for her. “This was the first place I ever bought,” she says, “and it has always been special for me. I loved the years when I lived here full-time. Everybody in this building either grew up here or raised their kids here, and you can just tell that this is a place that has held a lot of life and a lot of good memories.” … “I love being on the road. But having a home, both as a place and a state of being, is paramount.”