For Richard and Sophie, this new Montreal apartment had almost everything they wanted: high-quality finishes, clean interiors, and nearly 1,200 square feet on the 27th floor of a new residential complex located on the outskirts of downtown, with an unobstructed view of the Canadian city’s historic harbor. The space was more than the sum of its details—it was a blank canvas that represented the beginning of a new chapter in the newlyweds’ lives. But herein lay the problem: The apartment was a little too blank.
The pair tapped Luke Havekes Design to transform their home into a space that truly reflects their personalities. If you believe that elegance requires a certain perfection and rigor, think again. Here, luxury is instead about embracing color and lightness, which, as Italian writer Italo Calvino said, is never superficiality.
Palette cleanser
The building and the apartment’s layout itself offered the couple most of what they wanted in a home: natural light from three sides, plus all the amenities of a luxury development with a gym, spa, and rooftop pool. What was missing, however, was its own identity and a sense of warmth. Havekes’s redesign plays with perception of space through color—and consequently eliminates the often anonymous neutrality typical of many new buildings. The designer’s most radical choice was abandoning the use of white throughout the unit. The walls, doors, moldings, and ceilings are now bathed in three different warm hues that envelop the spaces seamlessly, creating a chromatic narrative more akin to a painting than a sleek, big-city apartment.
“When my clients came home after a 12-hour flight and saw the yellow in the main room, they were a little shocked,” recalls the designer. “Then, they began to experience it at different times of the day and ended up falling in love with it.”
It’s a jungle out there
Havekes also took a similarly unconventional approach to choosing materials. First, he coated the exposed concrete ceilings and columns—a signature feature of the building’s design—with Venetian plaster. “The concrete felt too cold and sterile,” explains Havekes. “The plaster allowed us to create a much richer and more enveloping atmosphere.”
If color and texture set the mood, the objects and furnishings give the space depth. The apartment blends contemporary pieces with vintage furnishings without turning the home into a gallery. Instead, the space feels highly personal. The lamp next to the sofa comes from Richard’s father’s office, the tapestry in the dining room is a mid-20th-century piece, while the painting above the sofa, depicting a horse and its rider, was a wedding gift. In fact, you’ll notice animal-inspired decor throughout the apartment, from the zebra bench in the hallway to the sculptural elephant and lion pair on the living room end table.
Halfway through the project, Richard and Sophie discovered they were expecting a baby. So, a room originally intended to be an office became a nursery—but the layout and bright tangerine color palette remained the same. The child’s space doesn’t conform to stereotypes but still feels warm and full of character. It’s an allegory for Havekes’s approach to the whole project—the designer demonstrated that color can be sophisticated, and that a contemporary apartment can be elegant without becoming austere.
This Montreal apartment was originally published in AD Italy.