Photo by Melissa Oivanki

The right chord: A piano room pitches the perfect note


The room was a blank canvas, 25 feet tall with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the grand oak tree in the front. With plenty of family-friendly space allocated throughout the rest of the home—thanks to the design by architect Lionel Bailey—this front room had the potential to become a showstopper for hosting plenty of parties.

“I pushed the homeowners beyond what they needed in the space and told them to consider aspirational goals,” says designer Arianne Bellizaire. “If they could have anything, what would it be?”

Homeowners Rubin and Manisha Patel decided that a piano room would be the perfect touch to complete the melodious home for themselves and their three sons. Bellizaire was then tasked with making this soaring space a pleasing room that could feel both intimate and engaging. Proper scale, durable fabrics and streamlined design were paramount.

“It’s a deceptively simple looking room when seeing it in photographs,” says Bellizaire. “But simple-looking rooms take a lot of creativity. Every detail was considered, along with scale, to create the cohesive space that the homeowners wanted in the end.”

Bellizaire shares with us how to take the simple and make it sensational.


Hover over the image below to take a tour of the room: