A proposal to extend the penthouse's existing design identity across the seven mid-market residences at Largo do Curvelo — grounded in Brazilian modernist furniture, priced room by room, not a generic refresh.
PropertyLargo do Curvelo, Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro
01 — The Situation
Eight units, one building, no shared identity — yet.
The portfolio is seven mid-market apartments and one two-floor penthouse, all in the same Santa Teresa building on Largo do Curvelo, a few steps from the tram stop. Walking the units back to back, one thing was hard to miss: the building has real bones. What it doesn't have yet is one voice.
Some units already hold furniture worth keeping. Others are down to bare floor. Right now each door tells a different, unrelated story — and a guest booking one of the seven mid-market units has no visual reason to expect the same quality as the guest who booked the penthouse.
Left to right: original wood paneling and a vintage sofa suite still in place · a wrought-iron window screen typical of the building · a cane chair and guitar left mid-move · the street below, seen from a unit balcony.
Several of the seven units are currently down to bare parquet and a mattress — and no two rooms are painted the same color.
02 — The Reference Already On Site
The penthouse already answers the question the other seven haven't asked.
Walk into the two-floor penthouse and the difference isn't budget — it's that someone already made decisions. A sculptural swivel lounge chair. A mustard, biscuit-backed roll armchair on a small wood tripod table. A dark wood-slat ceiling that reads almost like millwork. A long solid dining table. All of it under a view that runs across Guanabara Bay to Sugarloaf.
None of it is generic Airbnb furniture. It's considered, a little sculptural, unmistakably Brazilian. The proposal here is simple: don't invent seven new identities for the other units. Extend this one — and this proposal doesn't touch the penthouse's budget at all, since it's already doing its job.
03 — Where That Language Comes From
Sergio Rodrigues and Ricardo Fasanello, not as decoration — as a reason.
The penthouse's furniture already speaks the vocabulary of two designers who defined Brazilian modernism: warm native wood, leather and cane, and forms that are sculptural but built to be sat in. Naming that vocabulary is what makes it repeatable across seven units instead of one lucky room — and it's also what the pricing in Section 04 is actually built from: real vintage and reissue pieces, not lookalikes.
Sergio Rodrigues
1927–2014 · founded Oca, 1955
Designed the Mole armchair (1957) — recognized internationally at the 1961 Cantù competition in Italy — and the Kilin and Oscar chairs. Worked almost entirely in native Brazilian hardwoods (jacaranda, imbuia, peroba, tauari), leather and cane, explicitly reacting against imported, rigid European modernism to build a furniture identity that read as Brazilian. Organic curves, low-slung, generous proportions — furniture meant to be lived in, not just looked at.
Ricardo Fasanello
1930–1993 · studio in Rio de Janeiro
Came to furniture from race-car and boat design, and it shows — pieces like Esfera, Anel and Gaivota are more geometric and sculptural than Rodrigues, closer to sculpture than to conventional furniture. Mixed steel, fiberglass and resin with leather and wood at a time when few Brazilian designers used synthetic materials at all. His studio was based in Santa Teresa — the same neighborhood as this building.
Together, alongside contemporaries like Zanine Caldas and Jorge Zalszupin, they form the core of a Brasília-era movement: a rejection of cold, imported minimalism in favor of native materials and sculptural comfort. That's the language already sitting in the penthouse — and the language the other seven units are missing.
Translated into direction, not decoration:
Jacaranda / walnut
Wood tones, dark
Mustard / ochre
Already in the penthouse
Terracotta
Leather, warm accents
Garden sage
Echoes the tree-facing views
Warm cream
One shared wall color
Real prices for real Rodrigues/Fasanello-lineage pieces were checked before writing the budget in Section 04 — none of the three flagship houses (LinBrasil, Etel, the Sergio Rodrigues Atelier) publish prices publicly, so the confirmed figures below come from authorized resellers and Rio vintage dealers instead: a Poltrona Mole with banqueta at R$ 45.900, an LinBrasil-edition Oscar chair reselling at R$ 23.570, a genuine vintage jacarandá Oscar pair at R$ 12.000, and a Zalszupin armchair pair at R$ 40.000. Those four confirmed data points are what anchor the "signature chair" line item priced into every unit below — alongside Santa Teresa's own long-standing antique and restoration market, arguably the most fitting source of all for a building in this neighborhood.
Eight recurring pieces, sourced once and reused across units — not a custom one-off per apartment:
Anchor chair Sculptural boucle lounge chair — Units 1, 6, 7Bed frame Walnut, cane headboard — Units 2–5Rug Natural jute, large — every unitSide table Walnut, tapered legs — Units 2–5Daybed Cognac leather — Unit 1Console Walnut console — Units 6, 7Outdoor stool Light wood, balconies — Units 4, 5Terrace chair Light wood, cream cushion — Unit 3
04 — Unit by Unit, Priced
Every unit, its own scope, its own itemized cost.
Each line below carries a confidence tag. Confirmed means a real listed price or a tightly-clustered market rate found in research. Estimate means no fixed price was published and the figure is a planning range — most often because floor/wall areas are assumed (no measured survey has been done yet) or because a vendor quote is genuinely needed. Nothing here is invented; everything uncertain is labeled as such.
Two bedrooms across two floors, a living room on each floor, two bathrooms plus a second-floor washbasin, one open-plan kitchen (2nd floor), and a private rooftop terrace with a built-in churrasqueira overlooking Guanabara Bay and Sugarloaf.
Already furnished in the exact language the other seven units are being brought up to — see Section 02 for the full walkthrough. No design spend, no line item, no cost added to the project budget in Section 05.
Keyla's plan: list and actively market this unit from day one, earning real income while Units 1–7 are still being restored — full revenue estimate on its own page.
If anything, treat the penthouse as the ongoing maintenance baseline once Units 1–7 catch up to it — not a fresh design job.
05 — Whole-Project Budget
Seven units, rolled up into one number.
This is a planning budget, not a contractor quote — every range above carries through here. Two things would tighten it fast: a measured survey (floor/wall areas are currently assumed) and a real quote from a Rio upholsterer/floor restorer for the labor lines.
Unit
Low
High
Unit 1 — The Bay-Window Apartment
R$ 16.975
R$ 44.120
Unit 2 — The Cane-Chair Apartment
R$ 9.775
R$ 17.900
Unit 3 — The Bamboo-Terrace Apartment
R$ 9.625
R$ 17.500
Unit 4 — The Tram-View Apartment
R$ 9.625
R$ 17.500
Unit 5 — The Festival-Balcony Apartment
R$ 9.625
R$ 17.500
Unit 6 — The Mint-Room Apartment
R$ 14.290
R$ 38.490
Unit 7 — The Patterned-Floor Apartment
R$ 14.290
R$ 38.490
Unit 8 — The Penthouse (reference, not priced)
—
—
Subtotal, 7 units
R$ 84.205
R$ 191.500
Contingency (12%, standard for restoration-inclusive work)
R$ 10.105
R$ 22.980
Total project budget
R$ 94.310
R$ 214.480
Planning midpoint: roughly R$ 154.000 across the seven mid-market units. The penthouse is not included — it doesn't need this budget.
06 — Why One Language Across Eight Doors
This is a positioning move, not a decorating one.
A guest deciding between the penthouse and one of the seven mid-market units should feel like they're choosing between two sizes of the same experience — not gambling on which apartment happened to get the nice sofa. Right now, the penthouse photos are likely doing most of the work of selling the whole listing. A shared language means every listing page reinforces the others.
That consistency is also what separates "a collection of Airbnbs in the same building" from "seven mid-market flats that happen to share a lobby with a nice penthouse." It's the actual lever for moving those seven units up-market — not higher-spec appliances, but a guest experience that photographs and feels considered, the same way the penthouse already does.
07 — Suggested Approach
Prove it on one unit before spending the other R$ 120.000+.
Start with Unit 1, the bay-window apartment
It already has furniture worth restoring and the strongest existing architecture in the building — the lowest cost in the whole budget (R$ 16.975–44.120) for the most visible proof of concept, before committing to the other six.
Document it properly
Full before/after photography and early guest feedback on that one unit, used to validate the direction — and as the reference material for briefing whoever restores and furnishes the remaining six.
Get real vendor quotes before locking the budget
Every range in Section 05 assumes typical room sizes and researched market rates — not a measured survey or a signed quote. A floor restorer and an upholsterer walking Unit 1 in person would sharpen the whole budget fast, at no cost.
Roll out to the remaining six
Same palette, same sourcing logic, same restore-first instinct — applied unit by unit, sourced through the ateliers named in Section 03 and Santa Teresa's own antique and restoration market, without pausing bookings across the portfolio.
08 — Keyla's Role & Fees
This is an operating job, not just a design opinion — priced as one.
Keyla isn't handing curation off to a separate consultant and then stepping into the Portfolio Administrator role on its own — it's one person doing both, for as long as the portfolio runs. The sourcing, sign-off, and vendor coordination detailed in Sections 04–07 is folded into the retainer below, not billed as a separate one-time fee.
Ongoing
Portfolio Administration Retainer
Guest communication, cleaning/turnover coordination, dynamic pricing, and keeping every listing's photography and description aligned to the design standard above — plus the design curation and sourcing work from Sections 04–07 — for as long as the portfolio runs, all eight units including the penthouse.
15% of gross booking revenue + R$ 10.000 fixed/month
Owner's net — 8 units/year
R$ 598k – 822k
mid estimate R$ 705.545
A commission-only structure leaves income too dependent on occupancy in the eight low-season months. The R$ 10.000 fixed floor covers that gap and compensates for the design curation work now folded into the role.
The penthouse already proved this works. The proposal is to stop treating it as the exception, price out what it costs to make it the standard, and put someone in charge of running it that way.
