‘I SAW IT on TikTok,’ my stylist, Asher, said in an undertone as her assistants trickled into the apartment with rolling racks and cases of hair and make-­up equipment. ‘I wouldn’t usually say this, but given how you’re the literal sweetest person I’ve ever worked with – he might be the genius, but I want you to know: everyone is on your side.’

We heard gasps from the assistants as they went into the open area of the main level. The butler had drawn the sheers across the double-­height windows to protect the art from the sun, but there was still enough light to flood the pinhole perforations of the steel stairs leading up to the fifth-­floor studios. On a bright day, the effect was astonishing: the structure seemed to dissolve overhead, fragments floating on needles of light. A major magazine that had visited on an overcast day, however, had noted an undeniable resemblance to a cheese grater. Abe, who’d designed the stairs himself, had been furious.