A Trip to New York Inspired This Black-and-White Ensuite

With this Calgary ensuite project, Reena Sotropa Interior Design has produced a master class in how to design a master bath.

Sometimes travel can affect your life in surprising ways. For one Calgary couple, a trip to New York’s Gramercy Park Hotel kicked off a quest for a black-and-white bathroom. They tapped Reena Sotropa and Alanna Dunn at Reena Sotropa Interior Design for help to update their builder-basic master ensuite, dreaming of a high-contrast interior with a dash of classic NYC cool (and plenty of storage, of course).

The strategic use of marble—including its incorporation into two shower niches—brings an organic feel into an otherwise stark space. It’s the details here, like some seriously amazing brass plumbing fixtures from Newport Brass which became focal points, not accents, that truly let this design shine.

“We knew we wanted to make these fixtures a main focal point of the design and opted to create oversized and recessed niches in the shower to showcase the plumbing,” says Dunn. “The marble slabs in the back of the niches provide the perfect backdrop for the plumbing and are a great visual interruption to the surrounding subway tile.”

The small size of the ensuite (just 87 square feet) allowed only one person in the bathroom at a time and the niche tiling made for a painstakingly detailed process. But, in the end, the homeowners loved their black-and-white bathroom so much they brought on the RS team to continue renovating the rest of the home—a relationship that’s continuing on beyond a New York minute.