In the summer of 2016, Ted Marrocco, a partner at Stockwoods LLP, called up his cousin Taiga Lipson with an urgent request: could she help him redecorate his home? Marrocco had recently separated from his wife, and while he’d gotten to keep the house — a two-storey detached unit in Toronto’s Danforth Village — he had no idea what to do with it.
Marrocco knew that his cousin had style. Lipson is the granddaughter of Olga Korper, an esteemed Toronto art dealer. She’s the director of Korper’s storied west-end gallery, and an art dealer herself. “I said, ‘Taiga, you need to drop whatever you’re doing and come over,’” recalls Marrocco. She showed up that evening, at his half-empty house, with a notebook and a bottle of whisky.
The homeowner: Ted Marrocco
Role: Partner at Stockwoods LLP
Area of practice: Litigation
Year of call: 2009
Neighbourhood: Danforth Village
Home profile: A 3,000-square-foot detached home at Main and Danforth (which includes a walkout basement)
Marrocco is a litigator known for taking tough cases, so Lipson felt like his home should be a sanctuary, a place where he can unwind from his busy work life. She decided to paint the walls cloud grey, a clean colour that changes in the light. For the furnishings, she favoured both classicism and comfort. She had his suite of vintage dining chairs buffed and reupholstered, and then she found a sprawling, super-comfortable sectional to go in front of the 4K screen in the basement theatre.
Curating the artwork presented a particular challenge. “Ted’s colour-blind,” says Lipson. “I wanted art with strange themes and textures.” In her grandmother’s collection, she found surreal photographs and oil paintings with thick impasto.
Before the redesign, Marrocco and his cousin weren’t terribly close. “But it’s impossible not to become really good friends when you’re having that much fun,” says Marrocco. He and Lipson not only decorated his home; they have built a lifelong friendship. “When, two years later, my husband and I separated, I moved in with Ted for a while,” says Lipson. “It wasn’t even a discussion. He was like, ‘Your bedroom is ready for you.’” Once again, she brought the whisky.
Red-carpet screenings: Marrocco has a penchant for visually stunning ’80s flicks, like Blade Runner and To Live and Die in L.A. This projector in his basement allows him to watch his favourite films on a massive screen.
The dynamic trio: Marrocco and Lipson sit with Moses, their shared Bernedoodle puppy. For the most part, Moses lives with Marrocco. But the dog stays with Lipson, as she puts it, “whenever Ted is in court, works out of town or I need a snuggle.”
City and colour: New York artist Susanna Heller’s large-format painting depicts Brooklyn across the East River. Through art, Heller seeks to capture “the sounds and smells of the city,” says Lipson. When the work first arrived at Marrocco’s house, it was so new that it gave off the scent of canvas and oil paint, like a real New York artist’s studio.
The boppin’ barristers: Marrocco’s guitar collection includes a Fender Stratocaster — a model known for its basic tones — along with two G&L guitars, which produce a grittier sound. Although his preferred genre is drum and bass, he has expanded his range so that he can jam with other lawyers in his office, a few of whom are just as enthusiastic about music as he is. “We play everything from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to the Highwaymen,” he says.
The party wall: Before turning to the law, Marrocco was a music producer, specializing in drum and bass. He still records his own music, but only as a hobby. On the wall of his home studio, behind his turntables, is a collage that his ex-wife created using fliers from music events and venues (some of which they attended together). He keeps these fliers as a way of honouring their shared past. “She built me this collage, and I love it,” he says. “I’ll never take it down.”
Riddles and enigmas: This oil painting by Toronto artist John Brown, called Bubble Puppy, hangs in Marrocco’s living room. It depicts a futuristic factory. Or maybe it’s a stack of books. Or a house mounted on hydraulic bellows. “Friends come over and try to figure out what it is,” says Marrocco. “No two people have ever said the same thing.”
This story is from our Winter 2019 Issue.
Photography by Jason Gordon