Breakfast Nooks

Casual eating in high style—our selection of cozy, informal spots in one of the most central spaces in the house.


For a Southern California couple, architect Richard Landry created discrete structures to emulate the look of a small Italian village. The breakfast room’s ceiling and outer walls are glass. A French beaded-crystal chandelier is over a table whose base was made from a Portuguese giltwood Corinthian capital. (March 2007)




Designer Sandra Nunnerley worked with architect Arthur S. Pier to open up the living and dining rooms of a prewar Manhattan apartment for her clients, who wanted a more generous layout. Over the breakfast nook is Red Green Infusion by Jaq Chartier. “We used a banquette because it was family-friendly and it worked with the architecture,” says the designer. (February 2007)




Martyn Lawrence-Bullard and Trip Haenisch, of Martynus-Tripp, created a European villa-style interior for a Los Angeles house designed by Harold Levitt in the early 1990s. “There’s a funkiness I think is charming,” Haenisch says of the breakfast area, which has mismatched barstools, a pair of circa 1812 lithographs of melons by George Brookshaw and an 18th-century Dutch tall case clock. (November 2005)





“It’s chic and unassuming,” James Huniford says of a Park Avenue duplex he and design partner, Stephen Sills, designed. In the kitchen, yellow fabrics animate a breakfast area centered around a 19th-century industrial steel table. “The clients have children, and it’s easy to take care of,” Sills says. (December 2004)





“We created an old Andalusian atmosphere,” architect Richard Landry says of the Los Angeles house he designed for Lorna Auerbach and her husband, Larry Wheat. Above: The kitchen nook “is a warm, casual dining area,” says Auerbach, who designed most of the interiors. (January 2008)





“When I first saw this apartment, I knew what needed to be done,” designer Mariette Himes Gomez says of her recently renovated residence in Manhattan. “We gutted it and reorganized the space. Now it’s like a loft.” Gomez discovered the needlepoint-covered armchairs for the dining area at the Paris flea market. “One’s 18th century, and the other’s a 19th-century reproduction,” she notes. A 1960s mobile is suspended above an antique English tilt-top table, from Sotheby’s. (September 2005)



In Manhattan, Ike Kligerman Barkley renovated a 10-room apartment in a classic mid-20th-century Modern building for a couple and their four children. “The saltwater aquarium built into a wall of cabinetry is the focal point of the breakfast room,” John Ike says. The oak table and chairs, which have detailed carved motifs, are circa 1910 designs of Eliel Saarinen. (December 2007)



“The family’s goal was to transform the neglected mansion into their weekend and summer home,” interior designer Suzanne Lovell says of her clients’ 1890 Queen Anne-style house in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, which was originally built by Holabird & Roche. “Banquettes were added to two corners of the sunroom/breakfast room; they echo and soften the millwork and fill the light and airy space. The key mechanisms to lock the windows are original.” (June 2005)



“It’s a comfortable house with a lot of visual interest,” Arthur Dunnam, of Jed Johnson Associates, says of a Shingle Style house on Long Island whose interiors he designed with his associate Andy Clark. “The breakfast room serves as a passageway. It’s the hub of the house,” says Dunnam. The hound weathervane, left, and the tramp art mirror are from Sotheby’s. Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler Antiques pedestal table with cut-twig decoration. (January 2004)



“The owners wanted the frankness of a Shope Reno Wharton exterior but more layers inside,” Greg Jordan says of a Shingle Style house he decorated on Long Island. A long, open kitchen ends in a round breakfast room with a soaring ceiling. Jordan chose 19th-century antiques, such as the country French armchairs and the iron chandelier. The blue-and-white platters are English stoneware. (November 2000)