After purchasing a Manhattan penthouse apartment that was originally built in the 1980s, the new owner decided she wanted the entire place gutted. To undertake the demanding process, the homeowner hired Jonathan Mitnick, vice president of CCS Stone in Moonachie, NJ, and Ben Chasin, founder and president of Couture Interior Design International, Inc., located in New York City. “I am an interior designer and my crew builds the custom project,” said Chasin. “For this particular apartment, we gut renovated the entire space, we increased the ceiling height where possible, installed smart home technology for lighting and atmosphere control, and did cool features like instead of the conventional, we installed ‘invisible’ Sonos surround sound speakers in the ceiling, so you can hear them, but you can’t see them, and designed three luxurious bathrooms and a fabulous kitchen in full slabs of stone and porcelain.”

For the renovation, slabs of Calacatta Borghini marble, Dark Emperador marble and Stonepeak Calacatta Vena porcelain were selected. “Calacatta Borghini was used for most of horizontal surfaces and trim in the master bath and guest bathroom, and Dark Emperador was used in the powder room,” said Mitnick. “The Calacatta porcelain was used on horizontal and vertical surfaces in the master bathroom and the kitchen.”