Not only had fashion designer Kay Unger's previous apartments on the city's Upper East Side been more formal in their design, but for most of the last 30 years, until she and her second husband separated in 1996, they had been defined by marriage and children, two sons now in their mid-20s. "It was great," she says of the years of school meetings, parent potlucks, and sporting events. "But it's over. Uptown began to feel more like suburbia—the parks are beautiful, but everyone was married, and I was single." She was also turning 60 and ready to start another chapter in her life. A new environment, she decided, would force her to turn that page.

Tour her life-changing living space.