Over the years, I’ve toured at least a dozen homes featured in the San Francisco Decorator Showcase, the annual fundraiser for University High School. One particular year on Scott Street, where I lived at the time, the showcase hosted a special appreciation showing for neighbors who had tolerated all that’s involved with construction and deliveries of creating a showcase. We all thought that was a gracious offer, and enjoyed seeing the transformed former boarding house with a storied past transformed into a single-family home.
All of the showcases have been memorable, some more than others, but this year’s home is simply over the top. A team of over two dozen designers have worked their magic in over 30 spaces spread over four floors of the 11,000-plus square-foot 1899 Dutch Colonial mansion situated on Broadway Street at the Baker Street steps.
While the home’s classical details such as fireplace mantles; raised wood paneling, moldings, doors; and classical columns have been preserved, most have been painted — or in The Rotunda by Opa, the columns cleverly camouflaged with a unique organic design — to reflect a more modern esthetic. Throughout, the color palette features varying saturations of purple, blue, green, and mauve, evoking a soothing, cohesive, and elegant atmosphere. A bird motif also appears in many spaces, with one designer remarking that while working on the space, she was inspired by the many birds in the trees on Baker Street.
Here are some highlights:
• An Entry to Remember — The Grand Foyer, by Nancy Evars. Painted in a glossy plumy-aubergine and delightful almost whimsical bird-themed wallpaper, and complemented with a teal colored bespoke chandelier, the space is inviting and yes, memorable.
• A Threshold of Welcome, by Tineke Triggs. A veteran showcase designer, Triggs’s space adjacent to Evars’s foyer, is elegantly cozy. Accented with vintage and antique pieces from Paris and beyond, her custom patchwork carpet seems to set the color palette for the entire house.
• Jewel Box Kitchen, by Kristen Peña. Peña has transformed this former butler’s pantry into a stunning, fully functional kitchen to serve the adjacent dining room. With dark plum-colored plastered walls, an impressive, room-stealing curved stone backsplash, the stove hood features a decorative cutout that visually fits like a puzzle piece against the backsplash, the curving forms inspired by Peña’s recent trip to Italy.
• Elysian Gaze, by Sindhu Peruri. The primary bedroom suite, with an expansive view of the Golden Gate and Palace of Fine Arts features a serene and soothing palette of a beautiful neutral-color hand-painted silk de Gournay wallpaper with white buds, branches, and leaves. The sculptural purple sofa at the foot of the wide coordinating fabric headboard is anchored by a round area rug.
• Culinary Calm, by Chantal Lamberto. The original third-floor kitchen space with its dark blues and brass accents has a large center island of matching blue soapstone — its smooth matte surface inviting touch — and Lamberto’s personal collection of vintage items thoughtfully placed throughout. She removed a wall of cabinets opposite an arched, paned-glass window flanked by two smaller windows and incorporated functional storage drawers topped by a long display counter, which includes potted herbs and ornamental strawberries, the red providing a popping accent color.
• A Vaulted Jewel, by Stephanie Marsh Fillbrandt. Designed as a fully immersive wet room in a former dark and antiquated dormer, this transformed space is simply stunning with a groin vaulted ceiling of handcrafted Italian tiles that invokes the grandeur of Rome’s Baths of Diocletian. The vaulted ceiling detail draws the eye to the window that provided its inspiration, both of which are echoed in the design of the custom stone vanity and ceiling area.
•Laundry, by Keith Quiggins. With its dark blue walls and a dreamy, soothing animal- and nature-themed wallpaper, brass accents, and complete with a built-in dog crate with custom grating in the shape of dog bones, this is the laundry room to inspire one to do the chore.
In addition to the showcase, special programming is planned on Friday nights in May, featuring music, designer book signings, and more, including a special offer from Jon de la Cruz-designed Che Fico (who also designed the The Observatory).
45th San Francisco Decorator Showcase: through May 27, 2898 Broadway Street
