Letting in the Light

New Zealander, Huxley Somerville, 52, a managing director at Fitch Ratings in New York, bought a run-down Upper West Side brownstone apartment in 1994 and set about converting the space into “four separate living platforms” that would “provide room for all the essentials and allow the apartment to feel open and light-filled.” The renovation cost about $400,000, but a good part of that, Somerville said, was “from being on the top floor: hauling things up, taking things down.” With its alternating solids and voids, and artfully layered horizontal and vertical planes, the new space pleases even Somerville’s wife, Rosanne, who is the more traditional of the two. “I like how clean and contemporary it feels,” she said.