David Harbour and Lily Allen’s Architectural Digest shoot is a masterclass in editing. For the first few minutes, you might be lulled into thinking these two have awfully tame decorating senses.
Then comes the “garden room,” with its moss green double-sided couch, cascading flower wallpaper, and metal seashells. Then comes the room in which the carpet matches the couch. (They’re both patterned with the same tiger stripes.) And then comes the carpet in the bathroom! (!!!) “I’ve always wanted a black toilet,” Harbour beams at one point, “and I got one.”
Now there’s the couple we know and love, who got married in Vegas in 2020 in the presence of an Elvis impersonator.
If decorative styles were birds, David and Allen’s Brooklyn apartment would be a peacock that’s shaking its tail feathers and cawing at the top of its lungs. It’s a maximalist paradise, filled with antique commodes and sparkling knick knacks.
Interior designer Billy Cotton and architect Ben Bischoff have lovingly restored old features of the couple’s Carroll Gardens brownstone, like the original molding. Then came the “ornate” details and finishing touches—like the swan-shaped faucets in the bathroom, and an embroidered art of sexually transmitted diseases in the bathroom, a longtime possession of Allen’s.
“Lily is the one who really set the tone and drove the program,” Cotton told Architectural Digest. “Every time I tried to make it calmer, she kept pushing and pushing for more.”
As a devout maximalist, I must admit, my only problem with this apartment is that it does not belong to me. (Okay, and the carpet in the bathroom—it’s weird!)
This is not David Harbour’s first Architectural rodeo; he also welcomed the magazine to his renovated loft in 2019—a memory he acknowledges with a humorously murmured greeting about no longer being a bachelor. As some fans noted in their comments on the new video, Harbour maintained a more muted, minimalist look in his old place.
Chez Harbour-Allen, like most couple’s shared homes, appears to be a den of compromises. He got his black toilet, and she got her tiger room. He got his windowless bedroom (?!), and she got her the “plain English kitchen” of her dreams. The room is clean, light, and lusciously bland—the perfect starting point for a tour that will soon take us to many unexpected places, like Harbour’s backyard Finnish sauna and cold plunge shed.
Throughout the video, one senses that both Harbour and Allen are relishing the fun—especially Harbour. He might be known for TV and film, but this might just be his true ideal medium. As he points out chandeliers and cheekily compares closet sizes, the actor is clearly in his element. Here’s hoping that when and if these two move, they’ll invite AD along for the ride.
Keep obsessing! Sign up for the Daily Beast’s Obsessed newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
