The massive castle-like structure was the early 20th-century home of Daniel Guggenheim (brother of the noted modern art enthusiast Solomon R Guggenheim).
And experimentation is what facilitated their arrival as rising design stars: Simon and Nikolai used flat hexagonal brass tiles typically able to adjoin only on a horizontal plane to clad the rounded surfaces of a footstool for an exhibit of functional objets d'art at Manhattan's R 20th Century Design gallery.