We are always looking for balance. That elusive poise where everything belongs and nothing is missing. There is no definition for it. Certainly not in our books. It can take many forms and it either is there or it isn?t.
In the design of his New York home, British designer Lee Broom is skilfully dancing on the verge of balance. His gently theatrical second home unfolds like different stage sets. Each room is different and yet there is also an overall balance. The cohesiveness is achieved by using mainly furniture and lighting he has designed either for this apartment or earlier for his company, Lee Broom.

And because he has a distinctive modernist-minimalist-art-decoy style, everything in the apartment fits together. And he avoids the overdone-showroom syndrome by adding in each room pieces from his own personal collection of art, furnishings and interesting objects. The 45-year-old designer of luxury lighting, furniture and objects sells his 15-year-old Lee Broom brand in 67 countries. And because the US accounts for 35 per cent of sales, he was constantly flying between London and New York. Eventually, he and his partner, Lee Broom co-founder and CEO Charles Rudgard, felt they wanted a home-away-from-home in their beloved New York.

Broom?s background as a child actor, his studies of fashion design under Vivienne Westwood and his work on store design and window displays with brands such as Fendi, Christian Louboutin and Bergdorf Goodman have given him a global sophistic...