Gingerbread Face-Off! • Two

Living and dining rooms

Maya and Marcus decorated the living room fireplace (one of three in the house) with gifts that Maya’s family sent from Ethiopia. The walls in the dining room (right) show off some of the family’s art collection, which includes works by Black artists such as Sanford Biggers and Lorna Simpson.

Marcus SamuelssonThe chef and restaurateur shows us his 1890s New York City brownstone.

BY ERICA FINAMORE

arcus Samuelsson’s journey to his dream home started 20 years ago. The Chopped judge was invited to activist and poet Maya Angelou’s Harlem brownstone and fell in love with the neighborhood. “She said, ‘Boy, you better come up here and open a restaurant,’ and that was the moment I knew I had to live in Harlem,” he says. In 2010 the chef and his wife Maya opened Red Rooster Harlem, and in 2013 they bought this 1890s brownstone— which they now share with son Zion, 4. Everything about the space reflects the couple’s roots—he was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Sweden, and she’s Ethiopian—and their love of intense color and pattern. “The heart and soul of this place really comes from three homes: Ethiopia, Sweden and Harlem,” Marcus says. Turn the page to see more.