DJ Samantha Michelle Unveils Designer Recording Studio at New York Home

DJ Samantha Michelle has decorated her New York City apartment in the same style she composes her electronic dance music: with a mix of global influences.

The Toronto-born music producer, who has opened for headliners such as Cascada and Galantis, performed at Burning Man, and worked events for business titans such as Dolce & Gabbana and the Wall Street Journal, first moved to her Greenwich Village apartment building while attending New York University.

After graduation, she held on to the 900-square-foot unit, but left to live in Los Angeles for a year and then London for seven, before returning to the Big Apple in 2018.

It was a chance encounter with a fellow resident in the pre-war co-op building that put her on track to purchase her current place in April 2023, Michelle reveals in the latest edition of Celebrity Sanctuary.

“I had been living in a different unit in the building, and one day I was up on the roof and I met the previous owner, who was a very prolific interiors icon,” she recounts.

“I didn’t even know he lived in the building, and I Googled his apartment and I found these pictures of it in Vogue and [Architectural Digest], and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, this is my dream apartment.’

“The previous owner was moving back to the U.K., and I just sort of jumped at the chance to live in my dream home,” she adds.

Not only did Michelle trade up to an approximately 1,400-square-foot space, but she also completely upgraded the two-bedroom, two-bathroom residence that she shares with her dog, Bear, with a top-to-bottom renovation that carried on for nearly two years. 

“The entire process of the renovation took really long because, obviously, my touring schedule,” she explains.

“I’ve been traveling pretty consistently for the last couple of years, and I’d be away for like two, three weeks at a time, so trying to manage a renovation remotely was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do my entire life.”

Though her travels created logistical challenges for Michelle during the home makeover, generally, they have helped shape her space—and her sound.

“My style fuses Afro house, tribal house with melodic techno, and a bit of Indie dance,” she explains. “Everything I make has a house beat, and I like to bring in a lot of different exotic influences, so whether that’s African-style organic percussion, or I use a lot of Middle Eastern melodies and string samples on some of my music.”

In this installment of Celebrity Sanctuary, Michelle lays bare the bedroom she converted into a harmonious music studio, where every design decision she made for the creative space and every song she makes in it reflect her worldly flair.

I was looking to move out of the space that I was in because I’d had that space since I was in college, and it was just time to find something that [had] a little bit more room. I found out that this one was available for sale.

I did a total gut reno. Other than these bookcases, the millwork around these bookcases, and one strip of millwork in the music room, I basically changed everything.

I took a lot of inspiration from the original design in terms of the use of textiles and jewel tones, but I really turned it into my dream pad. It has a very European feel to it. It has a lot of influences from Paris and England. There’s damask everywhere, which is sort of my favorite textile.

The color scheme is very rich. There’s a lot of crimson reds, deep purple in the music studio, emerald door handles and detailings. Half the walls are fabric-ed and plushy, so you kind of want to touch everything. 

I have a family friend, his name is Jacques Dinel, and he’s an interior designer based in Canada. He worked with me on the things that I couldn’t do myself, like orchestrating the built-ins. In the music room, there’s a built-in desk there, so anything that involves math, measurements, drawing, architectural design. In terms of sourcing the fabrics and materials, I did most of that myself.

I’m a very cozy, cuddly, tactile person, so the space really reflects that. I’m definitely a maximalist in style, and I don’t particularly care for anything that’s sleek or modern. It just doesn’t fit with the fact that I’m going to throw 17 fluffy coats over it and kick shoes off in every corner.

You walk in, and because even the entryway is all padded walls, you kind of feel like you’re entering into this little bubble of a world. And then right in front, there’s a big leopard-print staircase, which has this sort of Grecian-style pilasters on either side. That leads to upstairs, which is where my bedroom and my closet and my bathroom is. 

Downstairs is a space that I use more for work and business. I always have collaborators come over, whether it’s people I’m working with musically or my manager, people from my team. I use the ground floor as more of a work-from-home space, and then upstairs is private access only.

It’s kind of that world of extremities. My creativity is my life force, but it’s also my work. It’s my social life, but it’s also my business. It’s really hard. It’s something that is a constant challenge when your greatest sources of joy and pleasure are also the things that you’re working to monetize and build your business around.

My bathroom is definitely my place of sanctuary because I don’t do any business in there. Everything is pink and gold and shades of cream. I have a steam shower, which is just the ultimate luxury. I love a steam, especially after a big work trip—to just, like, come home and be in my little pink box and sweat it all out. I have a big bathtub.

I find that [it] can be really restorative to light a candle, dim the light, take a long bath, and turn the day off. Also, it’s where I get ready and do my makeup.

Then obviously my music room, it’s like entering into this big, purple, plush, magical, dark kind of cave where so much creativity happens, and there’s such an interesting mix of color. It’s got this really beautiful blue onyx countertop, these mahogany-red rich wood walls, and these thick purple damask panels, which are multipurpose for soundproofing.

I was on a plant medicine journey, and suddenly I just saw everything in damask and purple, and at the time we were making these design choices for the space, and I was like, “I need to create in this cocoon of purple damask.” 

I’ve also been investing in my electronic dance production gear. I just invested in a synthesizer, which will be hopefully the first of many. It’s also the space that I use to record DJ mixes.

I also have the vocal setup there, so sometimes when I’m figuring out lyrics and stuff, I’ll use that as a space to put some things down. And then it’s got a big emerald-green pull-out sofa because I also really love to have guests and to host people and be able to share the space.

I just got a piano. My mom bought me a vintage piano, which was the loveliest housewarming gift imaginable, and it’s this beautiful red mahogany, so it matches the room perfectly, and I’ve just started piano lessons. 

The piano, it’s new for me, but it’s definitely sentimental. My mom loves to play the piano, and so when I was little, she would play and I would sing, and so having that in there is a really special touch. 

I think my friends who have stayed always feel like they’re coming into, like, Chez Samantha. You feel very protected, you feel very sheltered. It’s very quiet being at the back of the building. It just doesn’t look like any other regular person’s apartment. Every single corner and touch has been creatively tended to. 

There is that alignment between nostalgia, exoticism, worldliness—it has this very otherworldly, back-in-time kind of traversing through an old country house in the British countryside [feel], but in downtown New York, with a bit of rock-and-roll glam.

It was a long process to build and very arduous and stressful as you can imagine, but to have this on the other side of it is really such a treat. 

I feel like it’s my forever home. Hopefully one day, I’ll have more homes, one with a lot of rooms for kids and stuff like that, but I’m definitely strapped in and committed to a life in the creative arts, and that will always necessitate me having a space that I can close off and be creative in that space—and for me, [that] will always be New York.