The circa-1850 townhouse looks conventional enough from the street. But once through the doors, you’re in Vivian Reiss’s world. One room is painted ballet-slipper pink, and all the walls are hung with her big colorful paintings. Reiss says, “I had this idea of a Gustavian color palette,” meaning the late-18th–century Swedish décor popular during the reigns of Gustav III and IV. “Not that it had anything really to do with the house. But that’s what I thought. There is a lot of pink in the house, which might seem kind of yuck, but it’s not.”

Just beyond that pink room is the hallway with a giant marble basin and fountain from India — the floor had to be reinforced with steel to bear its weight. The hallway also has an ironwork staircase leading upstairs and a stair opposite going down to the kitchen. The dining room is clad in the original wood paneling and has a built-in sideboard. Her dining table, Reiss points out, “is in the shape of a roast chicken. So here are the drumsticks, and that’s the tail, the neck, and the wings.” Designed by Reiss, it sits in front of a fireplace large enough to walk into. And the room is lined with paintings, including one she made of her daughter, Ariel Garten, based on a work in Buffalo’s AKG Art Museum called The Marvelous Sauce featuring a cardinal cooking. “Hence the red jumpsuit Ariel is wearing depicted in my old kitchen,” says Reiss.