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OCTOBER | PAGE 60 | 2015 all day long with color, so when it comes to the house, it's brown on brown with black-and-white. That's where my comfort zone is." He began collecting classic, modern furnishings while an architecture student, such as the 1972 Knoll Mies van der Rohe MR chairs, later adding antiques such as a 19th-century gilded French armchair and 1840s Brazilian rosewood pedestal table from England. He's mixed vintage pieces and antiques with new furniture from Ligne Roset and Internum, including Poltrona Frau's leather John-John sofa. "Despite the fact that everything I have comes from diverse parts of the world and times in history, it has a thread of continuity that brings it into harmonious focus," he says. That thread is the unseen hand of the artist. Some acquisitions, such as the Smoke armchair by Dutch design house Moooi, overtly straddle the line between function and sculpture. "I try not to buy anything that doesn't have a real artist's presence behind it," he says. By opening the doors to his private home, Brown not only wants to recognize the artists whose work he cherishes, but hopes to reveal a bit of himself. "I want people to know there's another side to me," he says. "This house is like my secret garden." Clockwise from top: Large vases by Moooi, Rosenthal and Michael Ruh. Side table and chair from Ligne Roset. Contemporary Asian black ink painting by Island6 Collaborative in Shanghai. The image comes to life with an Asian girl when the back-lit red LED lights are turned on and projected through the rice paper. Dutch design house Moooi's 2013 Smoke armchair. Al Souza's Musege, 1991, through Moody Gallery. In Miguel Ángel Rojas' digital print David, 2005, a young Colombian soldier with a leg severed by a land mine poses as Michelangelo's David.