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For someone as busy as Shonda Rhimes, time and space are of the essence. The single mother of three strives to keep up with her children while simultaneously reigning supreme as one of Hollywood’s most successful and inspiring content creators. As the driving force behind television hits like Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder, and, most recently, Bridgerton and Inventing Anna, Rhimes has dreamed up dozens of dynamic, diverse, and multi-dimensional female characters, shifting the narratives of women and their place in the world. Her work tells stories about lives that are complex, complicated, and culture shifting—just like that of their author.
It can be a lot to keep in mind. So, more than anything, what this impresario needs most, quite simply, is time—time to write, create, and continue to build her successful Shondaland media empire—and a beautifully appointed room of her own in which to work. And that’s just what she set out to give herself in her brand-new New York City apartment. “This place is really about my work life,” says Rhimes of the residence on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “But I came into it thinking, If I had no kids, no responsibilities, what kind of a space would I create? Obviously, we did incorporate things that were necessary for the kids—moms never get to think selfishly—but this was really exciting for me.”
Rhimes enlisted AD100 designer Michael S. Smith, who also decorated a previous home for her in Los Angeles (AD, February 2019), to help realize a vision of classical beauty with touches of romance and lots of colorful flights of fancy. “For us, blending ideas of a romantic East Side apartment, authors of the past, and a sense of history was interesting,” Smith explains of the decor, which is rooted in tradition yet enlivened with bursts of energy. Take, for example, the breathtakingly pretty living room. “We wrapped it in this beautiful Chinese-style wallpaper to make it a garden,” the designer says.
Of that lush, arcadian space, Rhimes enthuses, “That pattern allows for things like those incredible yellow curtains and some really bold choices in furniture. There are a lot of gilt-edged pieces in there because the wallpaper can hold all of that. The furniture can be a little bit eclectic. It’s a mix of contemporary pieces and antiques, and they all work together really nicely.”
The apartment is full of places where Rhimes can decide to work—or daydream—as inspiration strikes. In the living room alone, she notes, “Michael created wonderful little nooks on either side of the fireplace to sit and to look out the windows, to sit and write, or to sit and drink a coffee and just enjoy the light. There’s a double-sided desk where I can work, or stare out the window and sort of watch. I’m mostly looking at the rooftops or at other people’s balconies wondering what’s going on. That helps when you’re trying to imagine stories in your head. I live with these characters.”
Filled with favorite books and paintings by Black artists including Hughie Lee-Smith and Walter Henry Williams Jr., the residence pays homage to its NYC location. But one can’t help but feel a touch of Regency-era London as well. “I had been immersed in the romanticism of Bridgerton for a while, so that had to influence some of the things that I had been thinking about,” Rhimes acknowledges. “Everything sort of spills into everything else. If I’m thinking about these books that we’re turning into a series, then that inevitably spills into how the apartment’s going to look, which inevitably spills into what goes in the scripts—it all sort of spins together.”
When it came to New York City living, another major influence was the home of the late Mike Nichols. After the enormous success of Grey’s Anatomy, the award-winning director contacted Rhimes in Los Angeles and invited her to lunch the next time she would be in New York City. “I didn’t know him at all,” she recalls. “Mike was the kindest soul—just to offer friendship, such kindness, and mentorship was really lovely. So I went to his and Diane Sawyer’s apartment, and it was breathtaking—this beautiful special place, so elegantly done with extraordinary terraces, and this quality of light. And I remember thinking, God, one day I’d love to live like this.”
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Drawing on her screenwriting skills, Rhimes first considered the story behind the character of her apartment before starting her search. “I read too many books, I spend too much time living inside of books, so I envisioned a grand New York apartment,” she explains. “I knew that I would know it when I saw it, and then I literally walked into this apartment. It was smaller than some of the places that I looked at, but I knew immediately. It has this wraparound terrace, and the light coming in was incredible. It felt like a place where even though you’re in the middle of a city, you feel like you’re in your own little refuge.”
Building on that idea of sanctuary, Smith worked to create a space that references New York but also feels like a place apart. “It has this sense of being a kind of citadel,” he notes. “You can be in the city and swim in that energy, but then retreat. That’s important for a person who has a very big interior life.”
For Rhimes, the end result couldn’t fit her needs more perfectly. “Michael knows me really well,” she says. “He understands the idea that I spend a lot of time inside my head—a lot of time imagining, a lot of time where it seems like I might be being quiet and still, but really I’m storytelling. So he knows that it’s important to me to have rooms and spaces to sit and think, to have new places to move to just get my brain going sometimes. I’m building an entire sort of universe in my mind, but I’m also trying to think of a series. It’s not just two hours, it’s not just 30 minutes; sometimes it’s 18 seasons. You really do need time and space to think about it.”
This story appears in AD’s April 2022 issue. To get a copy, subscribe to AD.
