This South Beach apartment Is black and white and red all over

Up until a dozen years ago, the Miami Beach building where interior designer Christopher Coleman lives with his husband, Venezuelan fashion designer Angel Sanchez, was a place of worship. It was then that the former synagogue was converted into eight duplex apartments. Today, the building or at least this apartment reveres a different set of credos: a faith in bucking local convention, a firm belief in recycling and reusing rather than the extravagance of buying everything shiny and new, and a devotion to the timelessness of black and white."Down here what you usually see is either Lilly Pulitzer colors or too much white on white on white," Coleman says of the lion's share of South Florida interiors. "And Angel likes Armani's palette black, white and gray which is very soothing." Coleman's reputation, however, was built largely on an unabashedly bold use of bright, saturated colors...

Indeed, the couple's former Miami apartment was red, yellow and white, and their New York abode showcased a Mondrian inspired palette of primary colors. But black has frequently played a role in Coleman's interiors, too, a product of his early training in graphic design, which instilled an appreciation of how the hues could outline colors and distinguish forms.Not surprisingly, the two men's tastes rubbed off on each other some during their 20 year relationship, encouraging them to start a joint design business, Sanchez Coleman Studio, which has already been commissioned to create interiors for a restaurant at the Indigo Hotel Brickell and a lobby for the soon-to-open Aloft hotel in Coral Gables.