Patrick Page and Paige Davis met in the mid-1990s during rehearsals in New York for the first national tour of the musical “Beauty and the Beast.” But with Mr. Page working on his scenes in one studio (he played Lumière) and Ms. Davis, a member of the ensemble, singing and dancing in another, they didn’t really meet until the Minneapolis shows began.
“We started hanging out as friends and we’ve been hanging out ever since,” Mr. Page, 61, said. The couple’s 2001 outdoor wedding was chronicled on the TLC series “A Wedding Story.”
For several years, the vivacious Ms. Davis, now 54, hosted TLC’s “Trading Spaces,” a home improvement show (where neighbors, with the support of a design team, would redo a room in each other’s house on a budget $1,000) , and later returned to her theatrical roots, starring in “Chicago” on Broadway. Recently, he completed an indie short film that will be released this year.
The couple could probably rest on their laurels and retire to a country estate if they had a nickel for every person who approached Ms. Davis (or thought about approaching Ms. Davis) in the past 20 years with what they seemed to believe that it was fresh observation: “Oh, you’re Paige Paige.” Alas….
Patrick Page, 61, and Paige Davis, 54
Occupation: Actors
I love you just the way you are: “Having Nate Berkus do our apartment was an incredible gift,” Ms. Davis said. “And because the design was so meticulous, any change affects the whole look. So when we change something even a little bit, we do it as carefully as we can.”
Ms. Davis joined Mr. Page in their 400-square-foot one-bedroom rental on the Upper West Side in the late 1990s. Space was tight, to be sure. But they were in love and stayed put until 2003 when they decided it was time to buy a place.
But the market was hot and they lost a lot of apartments because they failed to act fast enough. “So Patrick said we should go open houses and get an education,” Ms. Davis recalled. “That way, when we saw the perfect apartment, we did I know it was the right place for the money. We were just going to look.”
Ms Davies agreed it was the sensible plan. He’s not one for quick decisions, and apparently he’s never met a variable he doesn’t want to review. And review some more.
The weekend after adopting this new strategy, they entered the top spot on the list. “And when we got out, Paige said ‘That the. This is the apartment.” And it wasn’t like that Anything,” said Mr. Page. “And I told her we owed it to ourselves to at least see the other two places we planned to see.”
Ms. Davis begged to differ. “I said, ‘I tell you this is it the. If we don’t make an offer, we’ll lose it.’ I was sad on the sidewalk. I was crying. And Patrick said, “It’s fine. We will come back and make an offer.’ And I said, ‘It is not fine. We will miss it. But we got it.”
The subject of these histrionics was a two-bedroom co-op on the Upper West Side with 10-foot ceilings, nice big windows and an airy loft-like feel. The previous owner had taken down the wall between the second bedroom and the living room, “and it kind of opened up the whole space,” Ms. Page said.
She had planned to get decorating guidance from a designer on the “Trading Spaces” staff, but out of the blue came a tantalizing offer.
In the fall of 2003, the show did a two-hour special, “The $100,000 Challenge,” which allowed each designer to waive the usual limit of $1,000 per room and spend $50,000. The episode attracted attention and high ratings, piqued the interest of Oprah Winfrey, who invited Ms. Davis to Chicago, where “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was based.
“I spent the afternoon with her,” said Mrs. Davis. “It was pretty awesome.”
Even more awesome: Shortly after that visit, Ms. Winfrey and her staff came up with the idea of sending interior designer Nate Berkus to the Davis/Page apartment, in the mold of “Trading Spaces,” and letting him paint, paper, tile and furnish as he sees fit. (Mr. Berkus checked in with Ms. Davis on her favorite color: orange.)
Could she and her husband refuse? They could not. After all, the price was right — they paid nothing — and the timing was excellent. They had only recently moved in and had done little but paint one wall red (about which the less said the better). They had to clear out for two weeks while Mr. Berkus worked, but “The Oprah Winfrey Show” paid for a hotel.
Ms. Davis was a guest on the show and Mr. Page was in the audience when producers cut to video footage of the renovation and the grand reveal — rustic meets modern.
An elegant glass dining table sat atop a base of real tree branches. In a touch Ms. Davis greatly appreciated, the four-poster bed Mr. Berkus chose for the couple’s bedroom was made from the same branches. Likewise, the sconces in their bedroom echoed the chandelier above the dining room. Dark wood cabinets and open shelving in the kitchen replaced an expanse of white laminate. And since Ms. Davis is as neat as a Trappist, Mr. Berkus knew he was on safe ground by choosing a glass-fronted cabinet for storing towels and linens, as well as a glass-fronted refrigerator.
Two decades later, the apartment remains almost exactly as Mr. Berkus left it. The sculptural terracotta in the living room? Still here. The yellow patterned curtains that close off the guest room/media room from the living room and hide his tiny desks? It’s still hanging. The orange dinnerware, a tip of the hat to Mrs. Davis’ favorite colors? Still stacked on a shelf in the kitchen, along with a cache of green plates and bowls.
One of the few adjustments Ms. Davis made — swapping out a marble-topped console table for a credenza — was in the interest of creating more storage. And yes, they did replace a carpet, but you can blame that on the depredations of the couple’s beloved Maltese, Georgie.
Certainly, Mr. Page and Ms. Davis have put their own stamp on the apartment. Three floating shelves in one corner of the great room contain books, plays and about 500 Playbills, alphabetized by Ms. Davis. To celebrate their first wedding anniversary – the year No. 1 is marked paper – Mr Page hired a calligrapher to write the wedding vows they had composed for each other. The finished product hangs in the master bedroom, hidden between two pieces of plexiglass.
Mr. Page’s collection of canes (one conceals a sword, the other conceals a flask) sits on a stand near the front door. The Grammy Award for the “Hadestown” cast album is close at hand, as is a framed page from a Shakespeare folio.
Mrs. Davis’s natural inclination is to have more open space. Mr. Page’s tendency is to fill that space.
Fortunately, they meet in the middle.
For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here.