Amy Sedaris’s ‘Tree House’ West Village Guest Apartment

The Bedroom The monkeylike doll, Huckleberry, was namedby Amy Sedaris’s brother David and appeared on At Home With Amy Sedaris. “We have the same eyes, you have to admit,” she says. Her dress is by Molly Goddard. The painting of the Jefferson Library is by Hugh Hamrick, David’s boyfriend. The nude is from Housing Works.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

I love this apartment so much,” says Amy Sedaris. “It’s like a tree house.”

The actor, crafter, and author is ­describing the one-bedroom she bought in 2017 as her guest quarters a floor above her own apartment in Greenwich Village. “We wrote the third season of At Home With Amy Sedaris here,” she says. “Then I turned it into a gym and little sanctuary and let my friend John Early stay there when he was in town. When Cole Escola was ­doing Oh, Mary! on Christopher Street, they would go there between shows.”

Sedaris decorated the room with the help of assorted friends and collaborators, including Adam Selman, who made a ­series of hanging garment bags for the bedroom closet.

“Once we did that, then it was full-tilt gingham all the way from there,” says ­Selman, the executive creative director of ­Victoria’s Secret. Selman and Sedaris met in 2007 when he was designing costumes for Dolly Parton’s video “­Better Get to Livin,’ ” in which Sedaris played supporting roles. “Any chance I can get to make something for her or that she can rope me into, I do it,” he says. “If she dreams it, we can make it. I am her gay handyman and seamstress all in one.”

Now Selman is also her tenant. He was moving in on the day of my visit in June with the intention to rent for a year while he looks for a place to buy. His only cosmetic change to the space has been replacing the twin mattress with a queen. “I took continuity photos,” he says. “But it’s really perfect the way it is.” Anything else he moves will have to be returned to its original position. Selman knows the landlady has certain house rules and she won’t be far.

“Adam can’t put anything more on the walls because I don’t want more holes in Hugh’s work,” Sedaris says, referring to the Faux Bois walls painted by artist Hugh Hamrick, the boyfriend of her brother ­David, the author and humorist. Hamrick also painted a landscape above the sofa in the living room and made a dollhouse that fits neatly within the fireplace in the bedroom. “He used to do set designs. I am telling you he can do anything,” she says.

Sedaris at one point considered ­channeling a retail vibe for the bedroom. “I would be the owner of a department store,” she says, imagining the role she’d play. “I kind of let that go.”

She has settled for the part of Village chatelaine with an anecdote about each of her lodgers. “The plants are doing really well, especially when Adam is here; not so well when John Early is here because John is not a plant person. He doesn’t put out that vibe, and they feel it,” she says. “Isn’t that interesting? They are like a hot crotch when Adam is here.”

The Closet Adam Selman made the garment bags and covered the steamer with gingham. The chair is a gift from Todd Oldham,which Selman covered in denim. The rolling suitcase is a Louis Vuitton Yayoi Kusama Painted Dots Horizon special edition.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Bedroom Fireplace Hamrick made the dollhouse to fit inside. “Adam and I decorated it with some of my miniatures,” says Sedaris, who found the artisan Jade Lo through the Locavore Variety Store to make the wallpaper, windows, trim, and floors.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Dollhouse Sedaris told Lo: “‘Do whatever you want.’ I just want a broken window in the attic because I want to put a rock I got at the Acropolis on the floor, which I haven’t done yet. I wanted it to look a little haunted upstairs.”
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Entrance Hallway Past a rock just beyond the front door, painted with the words, GO BACK, a long hallway leads toward the kitchen and dining area. The living room is beyond.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Faux Bois Walls Hamrick painted them in one day. “He came in and didn’t even talk to me,” Sedaris says, “there was all this trim on the wall and he just popped it off. He wouldn’t let me watch, which I totally get.”
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Dining Room The table is from one of Sedaris’s shows. The window treatment of colored pantyhose was made by the artist Billy Erb. “I learned that from The Pantyhose Craft Book,” Sedaris says. “I have a lot of them. Aren’t they pretty?” Scenic paint was used for the portrait of Sedaris in At Home With Amy Sedaris.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Medicine Cabinet The wallpaper is by Sarah Jessica Parker. The shelves have been carefully curated to include toiletries, a printed house rule, and an egg by artist Chris Chiappa.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Refrigerator A few household essentials.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Living Room “The small chairs”—from John Derian—“I have downstairs in pink,” Sedaris says. The landscape by Hamrick was a birthday present. The sofa has been with her for years and is soon to be reupholstered.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

The Bedroom Décor Selman also did the curtains and the ironing board in gingham.
Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson