Mr. Santini noted that some modern two-story entry foyer designs were "really, really bad".
The overall color scheme is stark white, and the ceiling in the foyer seems designed to accommodate giants or giraffes.
Several interior details — including an oak staircase, mantel and 10-foot walnut doors are original; others — like the white marble foyer — were designed to re-create the house's original look.
The new foyers are designed by Allies and Morrison in a wholesome modernist style, which might be thought to be adding another Crosbyesque layer of time, but rather sobers up an ebullient, wayward composition, and brings an imprimatur of respectability.
Foyers are designed with space for leaving shoes beside the door, fake stone is forsaken for the real thing and the number four is eliminated from all addresses at Trio because of its phonetic similarity to the word death in several Asian languages.
Mortier spent lavishly on the house, endowing it with excellent technical facilities and a stunning foyer, with a floor designed by the American minimalist Sol LeWitt – a fan design in cool black and white marble – and an exuberant ceiling triptych by Sam Francis.
The façade, foyer and auditorium were designed by Edward Barry, and date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive £178 million reconstruction in the 1990s.
Instead of the grand chandeliers and sweeping pink marble foyers, the two-level room, designed by Arthur de Mattos Casas, a Brazilian architect, has brass Giacometti-style cocktail tables and gold-colored upholstered banquettes with matching ottomans.
Among the highlights is the restored foyer of the Strand Palace Hotel in London, designed by Oliver P. Bernard and rescued from threatened demolition by the Victoria and Albert.
Most of the first-floor rooms are positioned around a circular foyer with a large domed skylight designed to spare the living room and other common areas too much direct exposure.
Instead, just beyond the porch, Ms. Glazer designed a more utilitarian foyer — a mudroom — with a glass-paned exterior door with its own stoop where family and friends go in and out.
