LUNCH #1: PASS THE CHABLIS
It’s a flawless spring day in Manhattan, and the noonday sun is dressing the Hudson River in a sheath of silver sequins: a perfectly opulent backdrop for a luncheon with George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg. We meet at Perry Street, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten bistro that faces the river from the lobby of one of Richard Meier’s glassy condo buildings, where Yabu and Pushelberg have a 4,000-square-foot apartment on the second floor. “We thought it would be nice to have a little pied-à-terre in New York,” says Pushelberg.

Units sold in 2002 for $2,000 (U.S.) a square foot. Yabu and Pushelberg bought theirs on a whim, making the decision while in a cab on their way from Pearson back to their Toronto home in Moore Park.

“We couldn’t even afford it,” says Yabu, through the broad, terrifically white smile that rarely leaves his face.

Pushelberg’s long arms fling around as he relives the excitement, “It was like, Oh fuck it! What are we living for? Let’s buy it!” Now they’re neighbours with Calvin Klein.

The waitress glides over with a bottle of chablis. “Yay!” exclaims Pushelberg, blue eyes gleaming. “Isn’t this great?” he says, taking a sip of wine and peering out at the Hudson, a curious tourist in his own life.

Yabu and Pushelberg have just returned from a two-week business trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, Mumbai, Paris and Miami. They are at the helm of Canada’s most successful interior design firm, and among the world’s leading luxury hotel and retail designers. They are currently working on 25 hotels in 14 countries. In Toronto, they designed the just-opened Hazelton Hotel and are doing the new Four Seasons on Bay. Manhattan’s posh shopping capitals—Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Carolina Herrera, Piazza Sempione, Kate Spade and Tiffany & Co.—are all Yabu Pushelberg designs. They’ve just been hired to build a Louis Vuitton store in Hong Kong, complete with VIP salons. But their success can be measured as much by the prestige of their project as by those they turn down: they passed on the Shore Club in South Beach (they were already working on the W Hotel, right next door), decided against the Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona (the client, a Spanish tobacco millionairess, was an emotionally volatile divorcee) and declined an offer to revamp Paris’s Galeries Lafayette (not another department store!).

Pushelberg is the showman, the rainmaker, negotiating deals and courting clients; Yabu is the visual director, generating concepts and closely overseeing every project. While they have introduced to Canada a clean, modernist aesthetic, what makes them truly stand out is their unashamed gluttony for a life festive and grand—furnished with exotic travel, decadent homes and colourful friends. They are experts in hedonism, perfectionists in pleasure.

Their “little pied-à-terre” in New York, like their commercial designs, is minimalist but not sterile. Bathed in light from floor-to-ceiling windows, the space is both clean and textured, enlivened by assiduously chosen eclectica. Floors are travertine (the couple ripped up the floors twice to get them right), while the walls in the hallways (complete with hidden doors) are veneered with wood from a single Indian laurel tree. In the main room, there’s a Parisian Lucite screen, a Brazilian jacaranda credenza, a deer adorned with glass balls by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa, and a cast-bronze chair from Nienkämper (“What a cutie!” Pushelberg says). Sitting on a side table is a copy of Miami Interiors that contains a photo spread of the couple’s South Beach vacation home with its poolside bamboo garden. The floors in the apartment’s TV room are fully covered in broad, cushy, hip-high pillows (to enter, you literally have to dive in). And, oh, to live the life of Yabu and Pushelberg’s shampoo bottle. It perches pristinely on a travertine shelf in the master bathroom, basking in soft lilac backlighting.