Intelligencer - A Bohemian Loft in Tribeca

You have to climb five flights to reach the Tribeca loft of Federico de Francesco, who greets you with a big smile, apologizing for the effort. After you catch your breath, you see that it’s heaped with Moroccan carpets, a 12-panel Coromandel screen, two Murano glass chandeliers, and a large 18th-century Sicilian wrought-iron bed for lounging, as well as his own big abstract paintings. He studied economics in Italy and eventually got a “very tense” job working for an investment bank in New York, while painting at night and on the weekends. Now, that is all he does. He moved to this 1,000-square-foot loft in 2017. “There was nothing in here,” he says. “One chair and a small couch.”