JAYNE EYRIE
Inside a Manhattan collector's avian-inspired apartment.
In a Carlyle Hotel flat overlooking Central Park, decorator Thomas Jayne pairs Donald Judd and Frank Stella with Egyptian Revival stools for a collector client.
Author: Mitchell Owens
Photographer: Victoria Hely-Hutchinson.
July 2026
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With bosky views towards Central Park, this apartment in Manhattan’s Carlyle hotel is perhaps the natural habitat for an urban ornithophile. As for primping it, the owner reckoned there were but two men for the task: Top-flight interior decorator Thomas Jayne and colleague William Cullum, who brought an eagle-eyed appreciation for the finer details – including a striking avian mural overhead.
Peter Korver, an artist who lives and works in Amsterdam, garnished the entrance-hall ceiling with birds of all kinds - but species seen by the owner over the years and which have deep personal meanings. Birds that find the Hudson and East-River shores and woodlands their natural home.
Open the door, look up and there they are: birds darting, preening, gazing down, cartwheeling, looking around. Hudson Valley birds, mind you; very specific breeds. All were painted by Dutch artist, Peter Korver. One is a red-tailed hawk, favourite of the home owner’s ‘hippie sister’. ‘You can only see the tail, really, but that’s fine,’ he says, referring to the hawk’s inclusion within the faux-coffered ceiling mural, which greets visitors to his Manhattan apartment. It’s a reminder of his other home – in addition to this 1930s Carlyle-hotel flat, he owns a retreat on the river, where he can enjoy the real thing as it swoops by.
In the living room, Donald Judd woodcuts are grouped above a c1820 Italian bench that was a long-ago Thomas Jayne find. Ditto the English chair, c1800, which the decorator smartened with a wood-grain-pattern fabric.
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In the main guest room, a 1940s ebonised side chair by Dorothy Draper for Grosfeld House stands before a dressing table that has been lavished with a Jean Monro chintz. It is topped with a pair of c1930 ‘Nautilus’ lamps by French decorator Bolette Natanson.
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