SF Decorator Showcase Rejuvenates 1899 Mansion
The annual San Francisco Decorator Showcase provides a glimpse into how the other half (or 1 percent) live, and this year, it's life in an overhauled 1899 Georgian mansion topping Pacific Heights. Occupied up until 2010, the 8000-square-foot home has two dozen spaces of myriad shapes and sizes, each remodeled and staged by separate designers--so no two feel or look alike.
Chock-a-block with furnishings, aesthetic details, artwork and views, the mansion, open to the public through May 27, merits more than one visit.
If you missed the birds painted on burnished Japanese screens (in the garden), Randy Colosky's sculpture of stainless steel balls, looking like an oversized molecular model (commissioned for a nook aside the grand staircase) or the fierce gemsbok horns (in the masculine sitting room), you'll pick them up the second time around.
The showcase, a fundraiser for the financial aid program of San Francisco's University High School, marks its 36th year in 2013. For designers, the process is grueling: After seeing the showcase house (typically a former jewel that's outdated and worn), they have 48 hours to submit comprehensive renderings of a couple of rooms. A committee picks one designer or firm per room. The designers have about two months to turn their concepts into reality.
A Living Room for Mick & Bianca Jagger (circa 1970)
Dominating the first floor is the living room, which Catherine Kwong envisioned as a hideaway for Mick and Bianca Jagger of the 1970s--young, wild and "with a rock 'n' roll edge." Kwong liked the majesty of the original white ceiling with gilded detailing, but changed most everything else (including the light blue walls). Her bronze-studded, ebony-finished barn doors make the room seem taller. She introduced texture by affixing molding to the flat walls and hanging '70s vintage Italian light fixtures, whose white fringe cascades from the ceiling to the floor.
A huge black and white photo of the New York City Ballet behind-the-scenes adds to the feeling of celeb exclusivity.
Starring in the Living Room: An Oceanic Floor
The highlight of the living room is the hand-painted and lacquered floor, inspired by the paintings of Cy Twombly. Several coats of dark blue paint produced its deep shades of midnight blue, like the ocean. It was finished with bold strokes and dashes of white, using a brush as big as a broom.
Gold Out, Waves In
The dining room got some opposite treatment: To lighten it up, Heather Hilliard had the ceiling's showy gold rosettes and molding painted white and the floor bleached white. Flanking the imposing marble fireplace, two consoles of cerused white oak were made to match the color of the paneled walls. The space is modernized with wavy lines running along the upper walls (which were drawn on a computer, printed out and then painted on a strip of canvas that winds around the room, by Willem Racke Studio).
The rug and an Emerson Woelffer artwork have similar graphics.
Bubble Bath
Willem Racke and Emilie Munroe turned a fishbowl of a half-bath into an inviting retreat. Glaring and towering mirrored walls were tamed with canvas that has dots randomly cut out and turquoise circles painted on it. The bubble motif was repeated in the side furniture and the giant chandelier's white globes. The designers kept the sky-high mirrored ceiling; it and the mirrors peeking through the cutouts make the tiny third-floor room seem larger.
Bedroom Fit for A Fearless but Stylish Teen-Ager
Like Catherine Kwong, the team from Applegate Tran Interiors designed its room after dreaming up an occupant. The original bedroom, with light pink walls, was "not big or gracious," Gioi Tran says. He turned it into the headquarters of a fictional teen who's an artistic tomboy and an aficionado of goth, Kate Spade and European capitals. (That's her in the photo with a snake, and she painted the black streaks on her bedroom's white drapes, Tran says).
London Mapped on Ceiling
Bursts of yellow, green and pink are scattered around the teen-ager's bedroom. On the ceiling is a resin map of London, and a light fixture that sprawls like tentacles.
Rumpus Room: Where the Wild Things Are
The other kids in the house seem to be as free-wheeling and independent as their teen sister. Dubbed "The Danger Zone," the second-floor playroom features bright colors, foam-ball chairs, two orange teepees and bundles of red, play-dynamite sticks stacked in the fireplace. It's all "so kids can go wild," says Eche Martinez of Martha Angus Inc.
Master Bedroom Mixes Styles, Eras
In the master bedroom, Phillip Silver of Bigelow+Silver strategically placed the furniture to create spots for relaxing, writing and reading. Behind the bed's headboard is a slender desk. A pair of easy chairs with side tables and lamps sits before the fireplace. Shapes and colors are echoed, such as the curves of the fireplace and the zebrawood cabinet, and the robin-egg blue of the vases and of the wash on the photos of Paris.
Silver likes to "lay designs and styles over each other"--as seen with the contemporary, polished silver fire screen that augments the room's original fireplace, and the marble-and-Lucite side tables (which he designed) and the 1930s zebrawood cabinet. "Put them together, and it works. There's timelessness," he says.
Buy It Now
The master bathroom got the mansion's biggest makeover. Before: Pink- and green-tiled walls; a white marble floor patched with linoleum that had buckled; a pink bidet in front of a window and a matching pink sink; and a tub and shower head encapsulated in the middle. After: White walls; in the center, a limestone shower framed with sliding decorative metal screens and glass panels; a pair of stand-alone cylindrical sinks near the windows; and a deep tub alongside a green wall.
The wall is green, and alive, with moss, ferns and herbs, fed by a drip irrigation system.
Siol Studios' Jessica Weigley and Kevin Hackett wanted the bathroom to be functional but also conducive to "the ritual of bathing" for tranquility and rejuvenation.
If the mansion is everything you want (as the playroom's cheeky neon sign says), it can be yours, now. It's listed for just under $12 million (excluding the showcase furniture and other removables).
You'd be the house's sixth owner. The first, an art collector from Philadelphia, paid $10 for the plot of land and $12,854 for the building of the mansion. That was 114 years ago.
SAN FRANCISCO DECORATOR SHOWCASE
Continuing Tuesdays through Sundays, through May 26; and May 27.
At 2800 Pacific Ave., San Francisco. Tickets $25, 30.
The annual San Francisco Decorator Showcase provides a glimpse into how the other half (or 1 percent) live, and this year, it's life in an overhauled 1899 Georgian mansion topping Pacific Heights. Occupied up until 2010, the 8000-square-foot home has two dozen spaces of myriad shapes and sizes, each remodeled and staged by separate designers--so no two feel or look alike.
Chock-a-block with furnishings, aesthetic details, artwork and views, the mansion, open to the public through May 27, merits more than one visit.
If you missed the birds painted on burnished Japanese screens (in the garden), Randy Colosky's sculpture of stainless steel balls, looking like an oversized molecular model (commissioned for a nook aside the grand staircase) or the fierce gemsbok horns (in the masculine sitting room), you'll pick them up the second time around.
The showcase, a fundraiser for the financial aid program of San Francisco's University High School, marks its 36th year in 2013. For designers, the process is grueling: After seeing the showcase house (typically a former jewel that's outdated and worn), they have 48 hours to submit comprehensive renderings of a couple of rooms. A committee picks one designer or firm per room. The designers have about two months to turn their concepts into reality.
A Living Room for Mick & Bianca Jagger (circa 1970)
Dominating the first floor is the living room, which Catherine Kwong envisioned as a hideaway for Mick and Bianca Jagger of the 1970s--young, wild and "with a rock 'n' roll edge." Kwong liked the majesty of the original white ceiling with gilded detailing, but changed most everything else (including the light blue walls). Her bronze-studded, ebony-finished barn doors make the room seem taller. She introduced texture by affixing molding to the flat walls and hanging '70s vintage Italian light fixtures, whose white fringe cascades from the ceiling to the floor.
A huge black and white photo of the New York City Ballet behind-the-scenes adds to the feeling of celeb exclusivity.
Starring in the Living Room: An Oceanic Floor
The highlight of the living room is the hand-painted and lacquered floor, inspired by the paintings of Cy Twombly. Several coats of dark blue paint produced its deep shades of midnight blue, like the ocean. It was finished with bold strokes and dashes of white, using a brush as big as a broom.
Gold Out, Waves In
The dining room got some opposite treatment: To lighten it up, Heather Hilliard had the ceiling's showy gold rosettes and molding painted white and the floor bleached white. Flanking the imposing marble fireplace, two consoles of cerused white oak were made to match the color of the paneled walls. The space is modernized with wavy lines running along the upper walls (which were drawn on a computer, printed out and then painted on a strip of canvas that winds around the room, by Willem Racke Studio).
The rug and an Emerson Woelffer artwork have similar graphics.
Bubble Bath
Willem Racke and Emilie Munroe turned a fishbowl of a half-bath into an inviting retreat. Glaring and towering mirrored walls were tamed with canvas that has dots randomly cut out and turquoise circles painted on it. The bubble motif was repeated in the side furniture and the giant chandelier's white globes. The designers kept the sky-high mirrored ceiling; it and the mirrors peeking through the cutouts make the tiny third-floor room seem larger.
Bedroom Fit for A Fearless but Stylish Teen-Ager
Like Catherine Kwong, the team from Applegate Tran Interiors designed its room after dreaming up an occupant. The original bedroom, with light pink walls, was "not big or gracious," Gioi Tran says. He turned it into the headquarters of a fictional teen who's an artistic tomboy and an aficionado of goth, Kate Spade and European capitals. (That's her in the photo with a snake, and she painted the black streaks on her bedroom's white drapes, Tran says).
London Mapped on Ceiling
Bursts of yellow, green and pink are scattered around the teen-ager's bedroom. On the ceiling is a resin map of London, and a light fixture that sprawls like tentacles.
Rumpus Room: Where the Wild Things Are
The other kids in the house seem to be as free-wheeling and independent as their teen sister. Dubbed "The Danger Zone," the second-floor playroom features bright colors, foam-ball chairs, two orange teepees and bundles of red, play-dynamite sticks stacked in the fireplace. It's all "so kids can go wild," says Eche Martinez of Martha Angus Inc.
Master Bedroom Mixes Styles, Eras
In the master bedroom, Phillip Silver of Bigelow+Silver strategically placed the furniture to create spots for relaxing, writing and reading. Behind the bed's headboard is a slender desk. A pair of easy chairs with side tables and lamps sits before the fireplace. Shapes and colors are echoed, such as the curves of the fireplace and the zebrawood cabinet, and the robin-egg blue of the vases and of the wash on the photos of Paris.
Silver likes to "lay designs and styles over each other"--as seen with the contemporary, polished silver fire screen that augments the room's original fireplace, and the marble-and-Lucite side tables (which he designed) and the 1930s zebrawood cabinet. "Put them together, and it works. There's timelessness," he says.
Buy It Now
The master bathroom got the mansion's biggest makeover. Before: Pink- and green-tiled walls; a white marble floor patched with linoleum that had buckled; a pink bidet in front of a window and a matching pink sink; and a tub and shower head encapsulated in the middle. After: White walls; in the center, a limestone shower framed with sliding decorative metal screens and glass panels; a pair of stand-alone cylindrical sinks near the windows; and a deep tub alongside a green wall.
The wall is green, and alive, with moss, ferns and herbs, fed by a drip irrigation system.
Siol Studios' Jessica Weigley and Kevin Hackett wanted the bathroom to be functional but also conducive to "the ritual of bathing" for tranquility and rejuvenation.
If the mansion is everything you want (as the playroom's cheeky neon sign says), it can be yours, now. It's listed for just under $12 million (excluding the showcase furniture and other removables).
You'd be the house's sixth owner. The first, an art collector from Philadelphia, paid $10 for the plot of land and $12,854 for the building of the mansion. That was 114 years ago.
SAN FRANCISCO DECORATOR SHOWCASE
Continuing Tuesdays through Sundays, through May 26; and May 27.
At 2800 Pacific Ave., San Francisco. Tickets $25, 30.
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