San Francisco Decorator Showcase: Happy Days Are Here Again

Walk the early-morning sidewalks on the way to the San Francisco Decorator Showcase, and you will hear birds singing, you’ll pass flowerbeds exploding with roses and tulips and witness more than a few construction workers preparing to start their day by sipping coffee in front of regal homes wrapped with scaffolding and tarps. The San Francisco Bay Area is in the midst of an economic boom, and people are putting their money where their house is.

The showhouse is a beloved design tradition in San Francisco. A benefit for University High School, it pairs some of the region’s top interior designers with an empty mansion (usually one that is for sale, but not this year) and allows them to work their creative magic to decorate rooms that the public can tour. This year’s chosen home is a three-story, 10,000-foot Presidio Heights manse designed by Julia Morgan (the first female licensed architect in the state). Affection for Morgan runs deep in these parts, and more than one room in the showhouse pays homage to the diminutive architect.

There’s a reason it’s called a “show” house. The designers decorate their assigned rooms, for the most part, with few restrictions. There are no wallflower spaces when each designer is vying for your attention, and (especially in this exuberant, go-go economy) each room unfolds like a play with no story arc. It’s all climax, no denouement. Take a look and be inspired and even entertained.

Photos by Bess Friday, David Duncan Livingston, Margot Hartford, Aubrey Pick, Christopher Stark

2015 San Francisco Decorator Showcase
When: Saturday, April 25 through Monday, May 25
Info: Check the website for viewing hours and ticketing information.

From the days of the Gold Rush to the current tech boom, San Francisco has had its share of innovators (many of whom were also famously colorful characters). This is reflected in the home’s history, which lists past owners that include Abraham Rosenberg (the home’s first owner and the so-called Dried Fruit King because of his dried fruit and nut exporting business), Dr. Herbert and Marjorie Traut (he collaborated on research that led to the development of Pap smears to detect uterine cancer) and John and Lita diGrazia Vietor (he was an heir to the Jell-O fortune; she was deputy chief of protocol under former Mayor Dianne Feinstein).


Front Walk

Morgan designed the home with a side entrance that’s well off the street. Walk up it, and you quickly get the idea of what’s in store. Inspired by the packing crates the Dried Fruit King must have utilized in his business and the drought that is gripping the state, landscape designer Katharine Webster utilized art to bring the windowless space to life (which previously reminded her of a stage with no actors). Wood that is reminiscent of deconstructed packing crates is used to create a faceted sculpture that beckons visitors to the front door.


Grand Entrance

When visitors enter, they are greeted by art at the front door, thanks to an oversize artwork by Myke Reilly. Interior designer Candace Barnes chose the large piece for two reasons: It fits her vision of the space (it’s all about math and angles), and she really didn’t like the staircase. When the entry was designed, the architect probably envisioned it as a space to pass through. Barnes gives guests reasons to linger — including interesting art objects and pieces from the Candace Barnes Now Custom Furniture line she created.


Even the stair walls give people a reason to pause: Quotes from Morgan are hidden within calligraphy panels by artist Shannon Kaye.


Kitchen and Family Room

Blue and brown is a tried-and-true color combo, but interior designer Kathleen Navarra put her own spin on the concept. When the blue is a teal on a high-lacquer ceiling and exclamation points of hot pink are thrown in, tried and true becomes something unexpected.


Navarra skillfully balances tradition and contemporary styles with a brown La Cornue range backed by a verre églomisé backsplash. In French, that means glass gilded. In execution, it means back-painting glass panels with metal leaf. In reality, it becomes an interesting art object, kind of like a mirror, but not. Navarra wanted something ethereal, so she chose images of dandelions going to seed.


An island-straddling custom table acts as an eat-in counter. Navarra says the owners wanted to accommodate her children in the kitchen. (The owners are Karl and Holly Peterson.)


Living Room

Designer Phillip Silver of Bigelow + Silver was compelled by the ebullience that accompanies a bullish economy when he designed this living room. “The recession influenced the industrial look,” he says. “The recession is now over.” The colors and the furnishings were sparked by images of the late 1970s. “You know, before they took things too far in the 1980s,” he says. “This room reflects that brief window before padded shoulders.” He says that the pink and orange hues are about glamour and joy. They are offset by a warm white, a shade called Blanc de Rue that graces the walls of Versailles.


Pink film over lights illuminating the reflective elements casts a rosy glow that gets more pronounced as the sun sets over the Presidio (a decommissioned army base that is now a wooded park), visible through the large windows in this room.


Dining Room

Interior designer Cecilie Starin‘s dining room walks the line between elegance and edgy. The walls are decorated in a graphic black-and-white pattern created by artist Ian Ross. Ross is known as a street artist, and, as the designer tactfully says, his work adorns the “landscape” in San Francisco. But, these days, you are as likely to find Ross’s art in the corporate world as on the street. His pieces grace the walls at companies like Facebook, Lyft and Google.


Ross is also responsible for the colorful sculptures that flank the fireplace — they are aerosol paint cans (you are looking at the lidless tops).


Gentleman’s Study

Upstairs, a gentleman’s study by Brittany Haines of Authenticity B Designs celebrates the beauty of destruction. The desk is crafted from charred wood (a Japanese technique called shou sugi ban), a well-loved antique rug is subtly fraying, and a painting by Ian Kimmerly evokes the crackly and unfocused images found on a damaged videotape.


“I wanted the room to exude a quietly stunning raw beauty that destructed pieces so often have,” Haines says.


Gentleman’s Private Lounge

Haines’ space is for one of the home’s owners to work in, but designer Eche Martinez created a place for him to relax in. Martinez says he was thinking of John Singer Sargent’s 1881 portrait of a robed gentleman (Dr. Pozzi at Home) when he created this space for a “modern-day dandy.”


To make the wall treatment, Martinez had an inexpensive etching blown up to supersize, and then framed and mounted it in three panels. It’s a subtle, textured backdrop for a pair of fantastic Sylvan lamps from Coup d’etat.


Guest Bedroom

The guest bedroom by Glenda Flaim of Butler Armsden Architects can be viewed as a tip of the hat from one female architect to another. Morgan built this building using concrete. In the guest room, Flaim stripped away plaster to reveal the composite material. She then adorned it with drawings and letters Morgan penned in relation to this house. They are screened by curtains because, as Flaim says, “A guest can explore or experience what they want of the house.”


Master Bedroom

This is interior designer Will Wick’s fifth San Francisco Decorator Showcase, and he was in the mood to try something new. “I feel like I’m known as the designer who does masculine grays and blacks. I wanted to do something different.” His something different starts with striking moss green walls (a C2 Paint color called Peter the Great, naturally), creamy carpet and curtains that are trimmed with an almost furry upholstery and sculptural bedside lamps topped by pale lavender shades.


“My work happens very organically,” Wick says. “All of this sort of evolved.”


Master Bathroom

Interior designer Tineke Triggs of Artistic Designs for Living created a bathroom and dressing room that can only be described as sexy. It’s done in the style of the July 1966 cover of Vogue magazine (the photograph by Danielle Mourning over the curvaceous tub re-creates the spirit of the original cover) and it’s imbued with the groovy vibe and spirit of that era.


Sparked by the cover model’s ring, Triggs created a graphic black-and-white floor tile. Those organic shapes also inspired the lines of the custom vanity.


Pent Room

Speaking of glamour, check out this light fixture in interior designer Jeff Schlarb’s Pent Room, located on the uppermost floor. It’s a modern fixture, but it has the look of the feel-good ‘70s.


Schlarb, principal at Green Couch Interior Design, heard that the owner wanted a pool table, but the long, narrow room he was presented with had dimensions more appropriate to a bowling alley. He balanced the space with two clubby seating areas on each end and a floating window seat along the side. In the middle is the pool table, and it’s topped by a glittering light fixture wrought in the shape of a mythical dinosaur that (to the mother of a dinosaur-loving child) resembles an ichthyosaur.


Gallery

Interior designer Lizette Bruckstein of Lizette Marie Interior Design also was given a long, narrow space. But with its location on the lower level, it’s very dark. The designer re-imagined it as a tea gallery, a place to sample and sip tea (or perhaps wine from the adjacent wine cellar). It’s a space where all the senses are engaged —even scent, as it’s perfumed by a signature aroma.


Given the number of amazing illumination sources, this showcase house could be nicknamed “The Home of Dramatic Light Fixtures.” Bruckstein’s space shows why with a room-spanning ceiling light that is partially composed of bronze arms.


Inspired by the torch-gripping Victorian hand fixtures of yesteryear, Bruckstein had metal artist Adam Gale cast a number of arms (the designer, her staff and Gale himself offered their appendages as templates).


Backyard Garden

Designed by Jessica Weigley and Kevin Hackett of Síol, the backyard resembles a James Turrell sculpture designed to heighten the viewer’s awareness of light and space. Enter the path and circle the lone tree, and your focus is drawn to green leaves and blue sky.


More:
Tour 5 Gorgeous California Gardens
Livable Luxury at the 2015 Pasadena Showcase House of Design

URL: San Francisco Decorator Showcase: Happy Days Are Here Again http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-25984.html