Liev Schreiber’s New York apartment comes with one surprising country quirk

Liev Schreiber has always been terrified of chickens – it’s an anxiety that has plagued the “Ray Donovan” and “X-Men” actor since his hippie parents moved the family to a commune in Canada when he was a child. “They look like dinosaurs,” he told Architectural Digest in an interview for the magazine’s October issue .

Yet, when Schreiber opens the doors to his home for AD’s October issue, he seems pretty comfortable surrounded by them. Posing feet-up on a Diamond Chair by Harry Bertoia for his photoshoot, Schrieber actually coddles a hen on his lap. A few feet or so in front is his wife, former beauty queen Taylor Neisen, barefoot in a butter yellow Chloé dress, joyfully cradling another of their hens under her armpit.

In fact, Schreiber, who is set to star in the new Apple TV crime series “Nocturne,” shares his downtown Manhattan home with Neisen, his three children and five hens: Grandma, Sizzurp, Fern, Pico, and Miu Miu.

The birds — which were Neisen’s idea — are usually confined to the rooftop of the converted 19th-century industrial space, a surprising country quirk in the heart of the city designed by landscaping firm Brooklyn Grange. Neisen’s own childhood, spent on a corn and soy farm in South Dakota, made carving out some nature essential. “We had sheep and pigs and chickens,” she said. “So making a green space on the roof was really important to me.” Among the many plants are wisteria and raspberry bushes. For the purposes of the magazine feature, Schreiber is breaking his one rule: “no chickens in the house.”

To descend from the rooftop, a blackened-steel spiral staircase serves as an architectural centerpiece. But this dark, dramatic ambience does not dominate the décor – downstairs, the kitchen’s stained rift white oak cabinets and stone-topped island are subtler design decisions, but it’s still a room that took at least ten iterations to get right. Elsewhere, the couple’s love of vintage manifests with walnut grass-seated chairs, designed by George Nakashima in the 1940s, in the dining room, a 1950s Teak Pierre Jeanneret table in the bedroom and a sectional snake-shaped de Sede sofa designed in 1970s in the living room.

Schrieber first bought the place in 1998 as a bachelor pad, but started living there properly after his split with actor Naomi Watts in 2016. It has housed him through countless acting roles, but its location was especially useful when he was performing in Shakespeare plays at the nearby Public Theater.

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Through a series of renovations it’s morphed from a one-bedroom apartment to a sophisticated NoHo triplex with a rooftop chicken coop, adjusting to major life milestones, such as the birth of Scherieber’s third child, Hazel Bee. The latest round of remodeling came from designers Ariel Ashe and Reinaldo Leandro, who Schrieber first worked with on a home he shared with Watts around a decade ago.

“We wanted to get down to its bones,” Leandro told the magazine. He and Ashe leaned into the space’s historic texture, exposing brick walls and the charred wood beams in the family room, and stripping off drywall to reveal the original ceiling structure on the upper floor. The designers were tasked with a cohesive blueprint for urban living and did so by refashioning the entire layout — the kitchen and living room on the lowest floor were swapped out for children’s bedrooms, a new family den, and a home office for Schreiber where he can write screenplays and record voice-overs.

“I was so impressed at how it turned out,” Schrieber told AD in 2018. “I never dreamed I’d have a home like that.”

列夫·施瑞博尔一直很怕鸡——自从他小时候，嬉皮士父母带着全家搬到加拿大的一个公社后，这种恐惧就一直困扰着这位出演过《雷·多诺万》和《X战警》的演员。“它们看起来像恐龙，”他在接受《建筑文摘》十月刊采访时说道。

然而，当施赖伯为《建筑文摘》十月刊敞开家门时，他似乎很享受被这​​些小鸡环绕的感觉。在拍摄照片时，他翘着脚坐在哈里·贝尔托亚设计的钻石椅上，腿上还抱着一只母鸡。在他前方几英尺的地方，是他的妻子，前选美皇后泰勒·尼森，她赤着脚，穿着一件奶油黄色的蔻依连衣裙，正高兴地把另一只母鸡夹在腋下。

事实上，即将出演 Apple TV 新犯罪剧集《夜曲》的施赖伯与他的三个孩子、儿子尼森以及五只母鸡（奶奶、Sizzurp、Fern、Pico 和 Miu Miu）一起住在曼哈顿市中心的家中。

这些鸟儿——这是奈森的主意——通常被限制在由19世纪工业建筑改造而成的屋顶上，这处位于市中心的乡村奇观令人眼前一亮，由布鲁克林格兰奇景观设计公司设计。奈森的童年是在南达科他州的一个玉米和大豆农场度过的，这让她觉得营造一片自然空间至关重要。“我们养了羊、猪和鸡，”她说，“所以在屋顶上打造一片绿地对我来说意义非凡。”这里种植着许多植物，包括紫藤和覆盆子。为了杂志的专题报道，施赖伯打破了他唯一的一条原则：“屋里不养鸡”。

从屋顶拾级而下，一座黑色钢制螺旋楼梯成为建筑的视觉焦点。然而，这种深沉而富有戏剧性的氛围并未主导整个室内装潢——楼下，厨房的染色裂纹白橡木橱柜和石材台面的岛台则显得更为低调，但即便如此，这个房间的设计也至少经过了十次修改才最终定稿。此外，这对夫妇对复古风格的喜爱也体现在其他地方：餐厅里摆放着乔治·中岛（George Nakashima）于20世纪40年代设计的胡桃木草编座椅；卧室里摆放着一张20世纪50年代皮埃尔·让纳雷（Pierre Jeanneret）设计的柚木餐桌；客厅里则摆放着一套20世纪70年代设计的蛇形德塞德（de Sede）组合沙发。

施赖伯最初于 1998 年买下这处房产作为单身公寓，但在 2016 年与演员娜奥米·沃茨分手后才正式开始居住于此。这处房产陪伴他度过了无数的演艺生涯，但当他在附近的公共剧院演出莎士比亚戏剧时，其地理位置尤其便利。

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经过一系列翻修，这套公寓从一间一居室公寓蜕变为位于诺霍区（NoHo）的精致三层复式住宅，屋顶还建有鸡舍，并适应了人生中的重要里程碑，例如施里伯的第三个孩子海泽尔·比（Hazel Bee）的出生。最近一次的改造由设计师阿里尔·阿什（Ariel Ashe）和雷纳尔多·莱安德罗（Reinaldo Leandro）操刀，施里伯大约十年前就曾与他们合作，为他和沃茨（Watts）共同居住的房子进行设计。

“我们想还原它的本质，”莱安德罗告诉杂志。他和阿什充分利用了空间的历史质感，在家庭活动室里裸露了砖墙和烧焦的木梁，并拆除了石膏板，露出了楼上原有的天花板结构。设计师们的任务是为都市生活打造一个连贯的蓝图，他们通过重新设计整个布局来实现这一目标——底层的厨房和客厅被改造成了儿童卧室、新的家庭活动室，以及施赖伯的家庭办公室，他可以在那里创作剧本和录制配音。

“我对最终的成果感到非常惊喜，”施赖伯在2018年告诉《建筑文摘》。“我做梦也没想到自己会拥有这样的房子。”