VERONICA Webb, the stunning supermodel who co-hosts Bravo’s “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style,” possesses a quiet elegance that is rare in an age of cellphone wielding covergirls.
And her home is a study in refinement as well: 4,000 art-filled square feet with six bedrooms, six bathrooms and terraces on each of the four floors – all housed in a six-story TriBeCa building that dates from the Civil War.
George E. Robb, Webb’s ex-Wall Street mogul husband, bought the building about 15 years ago.
“It was an empty space until we decided to move in,” Webb says. “It had been an abattoir and then a warehouse until George bought it. He was developing property in TriBeCa and hadn’t got to it yet. By the time we married [in 2002], we needed it and it became ours.”
Together the couple have two daughters, Leila Rose, 5, and Molly Blue, 3. Webb is also stepmother to Robb’s two children, aged 22 and 25, who share a two-bedroom, two-bathroom duplex at the bottom of the building.
At 42, Webb no longer struts the catwalk for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel shows, though – as tall and leggy as ever – she still looks the part. The first black model to gain a contract with a major cosmetics company (Revlon), Webb has also acted in ex-beau Spike Lee’s films, penned several books and written for publications including the New York Times and Interview magazine.
Robb, 53, runs the RPM Nautical Foundation, a nonprofit archaeological research group that he founded in 2001 to find, study and preserve nautical archaeology and historic sites. And while the family is now based in the Florida Keys because of Robb’s work, Webb still calls New York her “spiritual” home and spends at least eight or nine weeks a year here shooting her TV show.
“New York always has my heart because it’s part of my soul,” says Webb, who was born in Detroit and landed here at age 19 on an animation scholarship to Parsons the New School for Design before she was “discovered.”
As we talk, Webb, who can’t help but look glamorous, is perched on a comfy Pottery Barn sofa – what she calls the “indestructible man-cave couch” – in the downstairs den she designed for her husband.
The home is an eclectic, vibrant mix of colors and fabrics – with bold contemporary art from the likes of Francesco Clemente and Jeff Koons. It’s filled with things picked up along the couple’s travels, including colorful kilim rugs from Turkey and Morocco, a French Foreign Legion bed from a Parisian flea market and Turkish blue-glass serenity beads.
Pieces from a real Egyptian sarcophagus are in the downstairs living room, as is a curio table filled with artifacts Robb found on his expeditions: musket balls, nails from a wooden ship and a makeup compact, rouge, kohl and powder from ancient Syria. A nearby guest room features a rocking chair covered in a bright, beloved Bengali-Indian print.
The top floor is reserved for Webb and Robb’s bedroom and her large dressing room/closet filled with racks of lovingly hung designer gowns. It’s also where Webb showcases eight prized, framed sketches Karl Lagerfeld drew of her for Chanel shows from 1986 to 1988.
The main floor is the “family floor,” with a 400-square-foot terrace where the family dines when the weather is nice; it has an umbrella table and a blow-up swimming pool. On the same floor is a stand-alone office with a big picture window overlooking the Hudson River; a gym below is connected by a library ladder.
“I made the office for my husband, but I use it now,” Webb says. “I made the den so comfortable, he never left.”
The spacious kitchen has two Miele electric wall ovens (“for baking”) and a Viking fridge.
“There’s always cookie dough in the fridge, and I’m always cooking stuff my mom taught me: chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, poached fish,” says Webb.
Back in Florida, Webb designs jewelry for her charity, the Macedonia Fund, which helps disadvantaged children attend the Key West Montessori School. (For more info, e-mail macedoniafund@gmail.com.)
Despite the quality time Webb spends in Florida and roaming the world, she says her love for New York City is as strong as ever.
“This is it,” Webb recalls saying when she saw the city’s skyline for the first time. “And I still think that every time I come into New York by taxi and see that skyline. That’s what I think. This is it.”
Also in Tribeca
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Agent: Richard Orenstein, Halstead Property, (212) 381-4248.
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