The architect Brian Messana is a staunch minimalist who prefers rooms with clean lines, concealed doors and deeply edited selections of furniture and accessories.
When you see an object in a room designed by Messana O’Rorke, the New York-based firm Mr. Messana founded with Toby O’Rorke, it can only mean one thing: “It must be special,” Mr. Messana, 60, said with a laugh. “When you distill our work, it’s just about proportion, space, light, scale.”
The results of this philosophy are on clear display at the house he and Mr. O’Rorke split time using in Hudson, N.Y. In the early 2000s, the business partners renovated the 1734 house and expanded it by adding a box clad in weathering Corten steel. They furnished it with the bare essentials, including a long table made by placing wood slabs cut from a fallen maple tree atop hardware store sawhorses, and have since spent more than two decades fending off clutter.
Upstairs, in the original portion of the house, Mr. Messana and his husband Neil Drew, 54, who also works at Messana O’Rorke, claimed one bedroom as their own.
Mr. Messana and his business partner Toby O’Rorke restored a 1734 house and added a Corten steel box.
“It’s weird because it’s very different from what I had thought I wanted for a bedroom,” Mr. Messana said, adding that he would normally gravitate toward a room with glass walls. With its angled ceilings and three small windows, his bedroom in Hudson is almost the opposite.
“I just love the shape of it, because it feels cozy,” he said. The windows “frame views like art, but art that’s alive and constantly changing.”
Mr. Messana recently shared a few of the items that have helped make the room his personal retreat.
Easy Upgrade
Govee LED Strip Light
An LED strip light illuminates the ceiling behind a credenza.
When designing homes for clients, Messana O’Rorke routinely works with professional lighting designers who conceal architectural light fixtures in coves and behind cabinetry to wash walls and ceilings with light. Adding such professional-grade fixtures to a room can be expensive, but it’s possible to achieve a similar effect on a tight budget too.
To light the wall and ceiling behind a walnut-and-marble credenza Mr. Messana designed, he bought this LED strip light from Lowe’s. “This goes back to our roots,” he said. “When we started the office, we used to go to Canal Street or lumber stores and just figure out how to use off-the-shelf pieces in a minimal way, to keep costs down.”
The self-adhesive LED strip, which is available in various lengths, was easy to install: He simply stuck it to the back of the credenza and plugged it in.
“There’s only one lamp in this room, so we had always wanted more ambient light,” Mr. Messana said. The strip is controlled by a smartphone app, he noted, “which is perfect when you don’t have a switch.”
Splurge
Tractor Stool by BassamFellows
A stool inspired by a tractor seat is one of Mr. Messana’s longtime favorites.
This stool has been one of Mr. Messana’s favorite seats for as long as he can remember. He has two of them in Hudson, and two more in his Manhattan apartment, where he uses one as a desk chair. “I love this stool,” he said, noting that he has placed it in so many homes Messana O’Rorke designed that some friends have teasingly suggested that it might be time to find something else.
Mr. Messana is unapologetic. “I think it’s very much us,” he said. “It just feels very basic,” he said, as though a chair has been reduced to its essence.
Modeled on a tractor seat, the stool looks sculptural and is deeply comfortable, he said. Its seat is carved from solid ash or walnut, so it is robust and ages well. “This thing is so sturdy,” Mr. Messana said. “It’s like an heirloom. You could pass it down to your kids.”
Handmade vessels with simple shapes seemed like an ideal fit for the house.
One of a Kind
Pair of ceramic vases by John Scott
When Mr. Messana finished renovating and expanding the house, his brother and sister-in-law gave him this pair of ceramic vases, which were made by his sister-in-law’s father, John Scott.
“I met him when I was in my early 20s, and he is so full of life and energy, and super ecstatic about art and design,” Mr. Messana said. “He knew all these artists, including Frank Stella, who he hung out with in the ’60s. Everything was so exciting to him, and I could see that in his pottery and was always drawn to it.”
The vases provide regular reminders of times Mr. Messana has spent with Mr. Scott, who is based in Carpinteria, Calif., but also have a shape and finish that seem perfect for the house.
“His work, especially in pieces like these, strongly aligns with our personal aesthetic,” Mr. Messana said, “and speaks to the house’s interplay of old and new.”
