"You don't want to make it a caricature, " says New York-based interior designer Vicente Wolf.

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Although the structure's exterior was protected by the New York City Landmark Commission, its interior (converted to offices and apartments in the early 1980s), with all its original Gothic detailing, had been virtually covered over with Sheetrock and paint.

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Ms. Eisen, president of New York-based home-staging company Interior Marketing Group, said she buys most of the furnishings at a fraction of their retail cost through websites like Craigslist and secondhand stores.

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The contrast between the staid exteriors and the vibrant interiors of homes is a metaphor for the city, says Val Nehez, an interior designer who works both out of Philadelphia and New York.

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Stelle mostly eschewed interior walls for a beach house he designed in Amagansett, New York.

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Logan, of New York, to be Special Trustee, Office of Special Trustee for American Indians, Department of the Interior, vice Ross Owen Swimmer, resigned.

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That would interfere with New York City's special local sales taxes on beauty salons and saunas, its special exemption for interior decorators, and its two special tax rates on parking--one in Manhattan and the other for the outer boroughs.

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In its designs it was still guided by the art nouveau tastes of its founder, Louis Comfort Tiffany, who restyled the interior of the White House in the 1880s and became the most fashionable decorator in New York .

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"It's very exciting for the designers to do it because people do come and see their work, get to know them, " said Bunny Williams, an interior designer and chairwoman of this year's Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York City, considered one of the nation's oldest and most popular show homes.

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