Modern condo gets a house warming

This was the challenge facing local interior designer Stephanie Rossi of Spazio Rosso Interior Design. She was brought in to help turn the ultra modern Newbury Street home of Clark and her husband, Tom, into a space that was not quite so industrial, minimal, and chilly.

Clark, who is probably best known for a stint on the third season of the reality show “Big Brother’’ (“Please, don’t bring that up,’’ she pleads when the subject is introduced) called on Rossi to help transform the condo into something warmer. Not only was Rossi working against the modern style of the building, she also had to create a design scheme that would please both husband and wife.

“Chiara is a girlie girl,’’ Rossi explains. “She likes light colors, flowers, and feminine things. Tom is quite the opposite. So I needed to mix those styles, and then I needed to get a little bit of traditional and a little bit of contemporary in the same space.’’

The condo has a soaring two-story living room with two walls that are made up entirely of windows looking toward the west. A third wall in the living room has stairs going up to the second floor. Rossi opted to hang a series of scrolls on the wall because “it was the perfect solution to bring your eye up.’’

“When you go into the space, your eye settles on the staircase,’’ she says. “Then it goes to the furniture, then it jumps up the wall to the scrolls. Your eyes always have something to stop at before they actually move up to the second floor.’’

Finding large-scale art that covers expansive walls can be challenging, so Rossi chose the scrolls, which are actually rolls of wallpaper.

Another challenge was choosing furnishings that didn’t compete with the view. Because the condo overlooks the Massachusetts Turnpike, there is a steady stream of traffic noticeable on the outer edges of the room.

“The view is harsh to begin with because it’s all cityscape,’’ Rossi says. “And then there’s the traffic. If all of that is in your peripheral vision, everything in the middle should be calm and collected.’’

That led Rossi to leave the walls white. She also opted for a white sofa and a dark floor. The color in the room comes from the bold area rug that Berti Clark spotted in a magazine and wanted for the room, the striped carpet that runs up the stairs, and pillows and accessories. Rossi is not a fan of color on the walls, but is a big fan of color on the floor.

Because Berti Clark is an avid antique shopper, Rossi wanted to incorporate vintage pieces into the condo, but in a subtle fashion that wouldn’t clash with the modern architecture. The solution was a dining room table made from an industrial steel door with iron trestles underneath. It’s modern, but still has a feeling of age. She further softened the dining room by adding a white curtain at one end, which provides privacy during parties.

“I think we found an ideal middle ground,’’ Rossi says.