Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Doing things by halves is a mediocrity that simply wouldn’t occur to Marla Sabo. When the former president of Dior Americas and private equity executive moved to Milan, it was for a luminous 1970s penthouse created inside a 1600s palazzo close to the Duomo. “I remember wandering here on a chilly, foggy night years ago and thinking, how beautiful is this?” she says, offering a platter of fruits and cheeses from the region of the Dolomites where her family originates from. While working in New York, Sabo travelled to Milan regularly and was often told that she seemed to light up when there. On one such trip in 2021, she realised she didn’t necessarily have to return. Deals can be done anywhere. “I thought it might be nice to have a place of my own here rather than staying in hotels,” she says. “I originally planned to keep New York but the real estate gods had other ideas!”The move to Italy’s fashion capital happened sooner than expected. A coup de foudre viewing, en route to the airport to return to New York, was quickly followed by an offer on her Central Park home. So she went for it, first lightening her load with a significant edit of the collections she’d gathered over the years in Manhattan and East Hampton. “I loved my old life, and many of my key relationships remain in New York. I’m still involved with MoMA, which I treasure. But I also adore being in Milan.”Of Italian-Hungarian heritage, Sabo grew up in a small town in western Pennsylvania that was home to many European immigrant families like hers. “We learnt so much because households kept the traditions of their homelands, religious beliefs and cuisines,” she says. However, her taste for challenges and new experiences started young: “I’ve always been an adventurer with a strong sense of self-trust.”She moved to France for university, finishing with graduate studies at the Sorbonne. While studying, she met the head of the buying office for Bergdorf Goodman. “She introduced me to the management there, which launched my career as it exists today,” she says. This led her to Hermès, where she was senior vice-president, and then Dior. Following a tenure in a private equity firm, she launched her own company, becoming an independent adviser in luxury, finance and M&A. Sabo often works from home in this duplex previously lived in by a family with a love of entertaining, as well as frequently hosting gatherings. A mezzanine was designed for musicians to play above the salon, and triple professional kitchen hobs fold up neatly for smooth service.The conversion’s architect was Jan Andrea Battistoni, who created an inbuilt L-shaped sofa with integrated side tables in the salon, framed by the curving pitched roof and rounded mezzanine above. Bespoke dining tables with striped marquetry are also by the architect — the one in the kitchen is more often where Sabo hosts local friends, while its matching counterpart in the dining room serves as a generous plinth for Sabo’s recent commission: a silvery orb of daisies by American artist Chris Wolston, cast in aluminium from flowers picked from his Colombia garden. Wolston’s vase sits beneath a spiral of lights installed by Battistoni. The ceiling arrangement, which Sabo nicknames “the shell”, complements sinuous shelves built to display Battistoni’s original client’s glassware collection. These days, guests at Sabo’s gatherings use the curved lower shelf, which skirts the room at knee height, as ad hoc seating. She’s still deciding whether to let it continue in this role or add objects. The upper shelf now holds a single vase, a “Chromatico” ceramic by Spanish designer Jaime Hayon, bought after an event she attended with him in Paris. This after-dinner acquisition is characteristic of Sabo’s spontaneity: she met Wolston in Tunisia where he was participating in an exhibition curated by her friend Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte.Sabo hasn’t made any alterations to the apartment beyond furnishing it — though this took an interesting turn. In summer 2023 a tornado struck Milan, damaging the roof of the building and resulting in considerable water damage inside the apartment. While sensitive restoration work was carried out, Sabo travelled a lot — including to Tunisia, which came to influence the decor of her home. A multicolour sketch for a series of carpets, another work acquired from Wolston, was inspired by light moving through palm leaves, framed in palm wood. Sabo reserved it the moment she saw it, along with a coffee table by Lebanese designer Georges Mohasseb. Also constructed in palm wood — relatively rare in furniture as it’s challenging to work with — the round, textured table offsets the salon’s right-angle sofa and echoes its curving walls. “I had been sitting on that table, and after I stood up I glanced down and thought, actually that might be perfect. I caught Nicolas’s eye and pointed at it — it was so easy.” As Bellavance-Lecompte lives around the corner, he was the first person she invited over. “He’s an architect by training so I knew he’d appreciate the space, but I hadn’t expected that he’d stay for hours as we talked through ideas for how to respond to its design.” She didn’t want to make the place a mid-century period piece, so “Nicolas suggested adding more artisanal works, to bring in a different character, and he was right”.Now, charismatic craft objects sit alongside contemporary furniture, art and photography. A 1988 Helmut Newton print, shot in Monaco, faces the desk in the study; a 1950s Giulio Turcato oil painting is hung near the sofa; and collages by Jody Morlock, which used to hang in Sabo’s mother’s room in East Hampton, rest above the kitchen counter. By the spiral staircase leading up to the library, a witty Judy Dater photograph of fellow photographer Imogen Cunningham peeks over Lola Montes’s ceramic sculpture “Guardian Angels”, a gift from the artist. Upstairs in the library hangs Saul Leiter’s photograph “Daughter of Milton Avery”, which Sabo spotted in the FT before calling the gallerist to reserve it.Atop one of the stacks of books behind her sofa rests an edition of French journal Cahiers d’Art. “It’s a vintage edition, all about Matisse — it ties me to my time at the Sorbonne.” She wrote her postgraduate thesis on the artist. “Working in luxury fashion helps shape one’s taste,” she says of her continuing interest in art. “The exposure to various cultures is fantastic, and as a merchant you have to edit, so you learn to sort through.” She spends much of her spare time in galleries and visiting artists in their studios. Sabo’s pared-back home today portrays her serpentine path through life, work and interiors choices. “I can’t resist drawing a parallel between the curved walls here and the various curveballs that shaped the way this home has come together,” she says. “There’s nothing in this house without a story — if it’s here, it tells a tale.”The result is a palazzo penthouse that’s not only an architectural masterpiece, it’s fun. And that suits Sabo.Find out about our latest stories first — follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
