For an art couple that met in the most classic way, bumping into each other on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum, Elizabeth Tops and Arnie Lizan have created a most un-classic townhouse apartment.

Mr. Lizan and Ms. Tops, who have been married for 10 years and owned an East Hampton gallery until last year, had interior designer Jamie Drake do some touch-up work to their apartment, which Ms. Tops has lived in for 12 years and Mr. Lizan for almost 20. “After I completed doing their new house in Bellport last year, they decided it was time to focus a little bit more energy back on their New York City residence,” Mr. Drake said. “They asked me to impart my flair for color into this pre-existing design. I injected some fresh energy into the apartment.”

Mr. Lizan, along with three good friends, bought the East 92nd street townhouse between Fifth and Madison avenues in 1987. They divided up the house into floor apartments, and Mr. Lizan kept the parlor floor with the bay window.

Interior designer Kevin Roberts and architect Timothy Haynes designed the apartment as an F. Scott Fitzgerald-meets-Ralph Lauren bachelor pad for Mr. Lizan. Still living alone in the apartment, he restored the moldings that had been removed from the 1890 townhouse by the previous owners. Now the refurbished apartment is a comfortable part-time living space for the couple, who also spend parts of the year in Barbados and Bellport, Long Island. “The apartment is a continuum of time of different periods of their lives,” Mr. Drake said.

Mr. Lizan noted that the parlor floor was historically the space for entertaining. When they owned the gallery, the couple would hold weekly cocktail parties for artists and clients. Entertaining on a whole floor of a townhouse is quite different from entertaining in one small room, but Ms. Tops and Mr. Lizan have done a lot with their small space. For one thing, there is a chandelier in every one of the four rooms – a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and hallway. The other owners of the house still live on the house’s other three floors.

“It’s a great way to live in New York,” Ms. Tops said.

From a dark green hallway, the Lizan-Tops apartment door opens into a regal entryway, with walls covered in black-and-white wallpaper with a countryside scene and a Romanesque bust placed on top of a table in front of a large gold-framed mirror.

Immediately to the left is the cozy bedroom, with at least a dozen pillows arranged on the four-poster bed. The royal blue walls allow the main attractions to stand out – a small library filled with Shakespeare and Spenser classics, two lounging chairs by the fireplace, gold-framed landscapes and portraits, and a zebra-skin rug.

In the small hallway, Mr. Drake recently restored wallpaper printed from antique wood blocks by a French company, Zuber. “We like working with antiquities,” Ms. Tops said. “We basically have an eclectic mix of classical imagery and contemporary art.”

The living room is certainly filled with a free mix of the old and new. Antique French prints hang near 19thcentury American eagle lamps that jut out on each side of a painted fauxmarble mantle. Also from the 19th century, a French gilded wood chandelier, adorned with griffins, hangs in the middle of the room over 19th century French tapestry chairs, and an 18th-century tapestry hung on the wall. A rust-colored velvet couch, two plaid chairs, leopard-print antique chairs, and an ottoman form a conversation area.

“One of the major elements we did was to re-paint and re-glaze the living room in a brighter shade of Nile green, as well as marbleize the mantle to create a vibrant focus,” Mr. Drake said.

The room includes a painting by artist Esteban Vicente, whose works were sold in the Lizan Tops Gallery. After 15 years of being in the gallery business in East Hampton, Mr. Lizan and Ms. Tops sold their gallery and their nearby house. Now they offer art consulting services through their new business, Lizan Tops Associates, which they run out of their apartment.

“We place art, from any time period,” Ms. Tops said. “Basically,” Mr. Lizan added, “we’re helping people find their own passion and vision in art.”