Fun-house geometry and a glassy, metallic shine define the Museum Residences. The luxury condominiums sit next to their sister structure, the eye-opening Denver Art Museum addition. Architect Daniel Libeskind designed both, and if you assume the six-story condo building is part of the museum itself, you're not alone. Sometimes the people living there can't tell the difference.

"When we wake up here, we're in a dream," says condo owner Mickey Ackerman. "It's like sleeping in a museum illegally - and not being arrested."

For Ackerman, 55, and his partner, Richard Gilmartin, 41, the illusion is achieved in two dimensions. First, there are the vivid views through wide windows facing the jutting DAM addition, as if the hull of the silver ship were about to pierce the glass of the fourth-floor condo. Then there's the extraordinary collection of art and antiques displayed in the home, a labor of love for the couple.

"Art truly is my life," says Ackerman, who lists his passions as collecting art, enjoying fine food and traveling. His work is architectural interior design. Ackerman's firm, Amirob and Associates, has helped clients establish eclectic, dramatic environments for 30 years. Gilmartin manages Amirob's accessory art gallery, Amirob International. The couple of 16 years travel the world searching for treasures for their clients - and discover a few things for themselves along the way.

Precious finds already fill their homes in lower downtown and Phoenix. But Ackerman, a longtime admirer of Libeskind, couldn't resist establishing a third residence in the architect's first condo development and first residential project in the United States.

"I've admired his approach, his uniqueness of architecture, the way he connects the soul to the space," Ackerman says. "I always told myself I would purchase one of his condos if he built them. It's magical that it's here (in Denver)."

Says Gilmartin, "I like to use the space to escape the chaos in downtown."

Just as great art often challenges the viewer, Ackerman found challenges in addressing the décor of the two-bedroom, two- bath condo inside the glass and steel structure.

"We knew this could be a very cold space," he says. "There is not a straight wall in this house, which creates many challenges for a designer. And Richard and I would not have been comfortable in a modern décor."

Visitors step through the door - or step off the private elevator from the parking garage - into a space grounded by black oak flooring, with a 700- year-old Buddha from a Thailand temple watching over the home. If the statue could see, its peripheral vision would pick up on the glass display case in the corner filled with hundreds of small children's toys, from Betty Boop to Mr. Potato Head.

"This is our insanity," Ackerman says. "When we have gatherings, everyone's around the toy collection - forget the million-year-old artifacts."

Conversation-starting art hangs on the walls, including a trio of abstract paintings in vivid red - a punch color throughout the home - a Picasso charcoal drawing and a 5-foot-by-7-foot Nativity painting that dates to the 19th century. It once belonged to the Catholic church.

"All our houses have collections, and we did an international religious theme in this one. I've always been attracted to the old and not new," Ackerman says. "Did I mention we have an incredible alarm system here?"

The main, loft-like space of the home is subtly divided into four areas:

• The kitchen, a galley-like space with dark wood cabinetry and stainless steel accents

• A cozy home-entertainment niche, where Gilmartin likes to curl up on a custom-made couch with the couple's Dalmatian to watch Court TV

• The dining room, lighted by a chandelier comprising 92 pieces of handblown glass

• The living room, with a conversation area facing the corner windows, where the panorama includes the Capitol's gleaming gold dome, the Michael Graves-designed library, Gio Ponti's original DAM structure and the new Libeskind creation. Two patios, with access from the living room and the master suite, get you even closer to the architecture.

Area rugs and sofas in earth tones don't compete with the objets d'art throughout the space: hand-carved zodiac statues from China; from Greece, a sculpted school of fish leaping off the wall; a cherub sculpture salvaged from an ancient cemetery.

"Everywhere you turn around, there's more history," Ackerman says. "Yet this is contemporary, with tremendous warmth. We call it eclectic contemporary, with influences from the Old World.

"But it's also very comfortable. Friends stay here, and they tell us it's a great space to live in - it just happens to be surrounded by beautiful things."

Comfort gets the emphasis, naturally, in the bedrooms. The master suite goes bold with color, boasting rich red walls with texture suggesting amphibian skin. The master bath shows flairs of Zen and African style.

The guest suite pampers visitors, with wall-to-wall tan carpet, stone-like walls and classical sculpture perched on countertops.

With some tweaks to a door or two here, another painting to be hung there, Ackerman figures his work will be done at home. But it won't be done at the Museum Residences: He's already designing another unit in the building for a client.

"I don't like to think about formulas," Ackerman says of his approach to design, whether it's in his own home or at a client's. "If you really look at every piece here, you would never think about putting them together."

The details

• What: two-bedroom, two-bath condo at the Museum Residences

• Designer: Mickey Ackerman of Amirob and Associates

• Square footage: 2,300

• Purchase price: $1.2 million

Museum Residences

• Architect: Daniel Libeskind

• Total units: 55, top price of $2.5 million

• Units still for sale: 14

• Square footage: 750 to 4,800 square feet

• Price range of remaining units: about $350,000 to $1.2 million

• Developer: Mile High Development and Corporex Colorado

• Builder: Millender White Construction

• museumresidences.com

A winning design

• The Museum Residences' recent awards: the Colorado Business Committee of the Arts 2007 Innovation Award, recognizing an inspired blending of business and arts that propels business achievement, and a Merit Award for Multifamily in Residential Architect magazine's eighth annual design competition.

dedrickj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5484

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