SEPTEMBER 2016 I BOROMAG.COM I 47 with the space,” he said. “In my apartment, there’s not truly architectural value to the space, so it needed to be much more casual. There aren’t beautiful moldings or beautiful windows. Even though it’s a very nice apartment, it’s a very simple apartment.” His style is “very eclectic,” he said. “I think it has a touch of modern mid-century, but it’s very much mixed with much more traditional things. I like very earthy tones, and because of the way the apartment felt when I moved in, it does have a sort of summer cottage feel to it.” He asks clients what they want to do in a room and then works from there. “For me, interior design is function and beauty, and the function for my apartment is to have people over,” he said. “So I wanted to create areas where people will be able to sit down and have a conversation.” Valcarcel went to school for art — he originally wanted to be a painter — and started his career in visual merchandizing and fashion. He then worked in home departments of stores such as Barneys, Calvin Klein, and SeaCloth in Connecticut. One of his clients asked Valcarcel to design her apartment, and that’s how he began to make the transition to residential work. “I thought, ‘Oh, wow — this is what I should be doing,’” he said. He’s been able to take lessons he learned from his work in home departments and translate them to his interior design. For example, around his apartment, framed pieces of artwork lean against the walls. “That’s something that I learned at Calvin Klein: just leaning things,” Valcarcel said. “I find it a little more casual, and sometimes they cover things.” He pointed to one framed piece of artwork leaning in the hallway. “In this case, it’s covering the wire.” Valcarcel’s hallway holds a small selection of his personal photos. “I like to have pictures only in one place,” he said. “So I always determine one space in the apartment or in the home as the gallery, and that’s where I’ll have personal pictures.” Valcarcel’s apartment might look to any visitor as if it’s a finished product, but the interior designer likes to always be changing things in his space. “Things need to have a life span, and then you need to move on to something else,” he said. “A place that is not toughed or utilized well is a space that dies.” So, despite all the work he has put into making his apartment his own, the only thing he couldn’t part with is his matching pair of mid-century, horn-style chairs. “If there is a fire in my apartment, I will carry these two chairs on my back all the way down the stairs,” Valcarcel said. “I would save these two chairs — the rest can go.”
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