A quick overview. For close-ups and greater detail, SEE Blog.
A quick overview. For close-ups and greater detail, SEE Blog.
A quick overview. For close-ups and greater detail, SEE Blog.
A quick overview. For close-ups and greater detail, SEE Blog.
A quick overview. For close-ups and greater detail, SEE Blog.
clients
Bath & Powder
Functional Beauty
It’s possible to achieve a marvelous merger between architectural design and the interior elements so that a maximum elevation of lifestyle is achieved. In such an environment, it’s hard to distinguish between function and beauty since they overlap seamlessly.
I’d like to illustrate this whole dynamic using a particular home for which I was honored to serve as both architect and interior designer. We’ll take a brief tour of the public areas on the main floor to see how lifestyle, entertaining, function and beauty all interconnect.
We’ll start our tour with the kitchen — the heart of any home, the center point from which family and community emanate.
A Brief Tour
of Functional Beauty
At the time of this residential build, there were four active children ages 5—14 living at home making this kitchen a busy place. The family also loves to entertain, often spontaneously, with a dozen or more guests. And they’ve graciously hosted larger gatherings at their home with upwards of 150 in attendance for catered celebrations.
Needless to say, their kitchen was critical for managing food preparation, crowds in motion, and the logistics to make it seem effortless.
The interior working island provides a second dishwasher near the stove, a prep sink, and additional storage. The wide aisle around it allows as many as half a dozen people to participate in meal preparation. The homeowners often use this island to lay out a simple buffet for family meals.
The larger island with columns and a walnut top is primarily for serving larger groups. It also doubles as a serve-yourself wine and beverage bar.
We see that the traffic flow is uninterrupted to and from the kitchen since arched passageways are built on both sides of the serving island. This outer island functions as a visual buffer separating the kitchen from the great room while keeping the spacious feel of the open floor plan.
The ceiling in the kitchen is the standard 10′ height, while the great room has a ceiling height of 13′ 9″. The arches between these areas set up the experience of moving through a short passage that opens up to a larger space. It’s subtle, but it works beautifully as a transition device.
We continue our tour in the sunroom located behind the great room fireplace. In addition to featuring entertainment media, the sunroom provides overflow seating for the great room. It connects with the breakfast room and accesses the grand porch with its stunning views of the golf course below.
Not only can you arrive at this grand porch through the sunroom but also from the great room, the entry hall, and the library.
On the front side of the grand porch we created an outdoor “room” with a seating area facing the fireplace. This area has received a tremendous amount of use during gatherings. Canvas drapes can close off this area as needed to maintain a cozy temperature on cold evenings, and the views are unparalleled.
On occasion, the furniture has been relocated to the porch below so a band for dancing can be set up here.
French doors lead from the outdoor room to a small library designed for more private conversations. The homeowner told me that after he would make his rounds greeting all their guests, he would often collect his closest buddies, and this is where they’d find sanctuary for a more private conversation.
It was a pleasure for me to discover that the clients didn’t want a conventional dining room: they didn’t want the usual table and chairs with grandma’s hutch. Instead, they asked for a table that was bar height as you might find in a bistro — something that would suit the overall vintage feel of the home.
They have a favorite restaurant where they enjoyed this kind of narrow-but-long table allowing folks to sit across from one another at fairly close range and have intimate conversations yet also be able to join in with the group at-large as the ebb and flow invites it. So I designed for them a ’30s Deco 2-sided bar with inlaid zebrawood and a worn, rubbed black finish. Its 11’ 6” long and seats ten people. The striking contemporary art completes the setting.
In addition to providing additional stylish seating when the house is filled with guests, this custom bar table is used as an impressive buffet during catered events. In fact, the family enjoys this table so much, they’ve ended up eating more meals here than in the breakfast room.
The entry hall guides guests to the great room with its beamed and moderately vaulted ceiling. This room is only 13’ 9” tall because we didn’t want the room to feel cavernous (as a 2-story room often does). The scale of the furnishings is perfectly suited to the great room’s overall size. The unusual antique rug sets the vintage tone of the furniture selections.
While this room is classically styled with a 1930s theme much like the old Spanish Colonial homes in the Hollywood Hills, the artwork, accessories and color scheme are modern and fresh. It’s vibrant, friendly, open, exciting and active — exactly like the homeowners themselves.
