The San Francisco Decorator Showcase — a home tour in its 46th year benefiting the San Francisco University High School financial aid program — will be open to the public through May 26. Every year, top Bay Area designers and a fleet of volunteers, donors and sponsors come together to transform the interior of a remarkable San Francisco home, which is then visited by thousands. This year, Sonoma designers and artisans have lent their talents to the exquisitely decorated home.
A 1902 T. Paterson Ross dwelling in Pacific Heights is the site of this year’s tour. The seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion spans 9,000 square feet over five levels, and includes an elevator and rooftop gardens with bay and skyline views.
John Anderson, Guerneville resident and principal designer of JKA Design, was tasked with transforming the pentroom on the home’s roof deck. Entitled “Way Out West: A Technicolor Time-Out,” the room features high-octane accents — like Terri Loewenthal’s color-saturated nature photos — among neutral hues and textured elements. Anderson described the room design as: “High chroma accents that are rooted in this desert-like natural envelope.”
The room is influenced by Anderson’s affinity for the American Southwest and references several spots he has traveled to or called home, from Dallas, where he grew up, to Arizona, where he went to school, and then to Palm Springs.
“We created a room that we would have wanted to hang out in,” Anderson said of the design his team built. “We imagined you’d be having a hot tub (in the adjacent rooftop Jacuzzi) and then coming into the space and listening to some music and making yourself a cocktail. And no TV, no other technology. It’s going to be a listening room and bar.”
The design includes a vinyl record player, and Anderson created a Spotify playlist spanning many decades, including country, downtempo chill and techno music to add, he said, “a very dreamscape vibe” to the room.
Country star Orville Peck was on Anderson’s personal playlist as he and the team were designing. As a result, Peck’s influence is tangible in the space. The South African musician, known for concealing his face with fringy masks, inspired the use of fringe in the room — on the shades and chairs as well as on the sconces in a vibrant blue bathroom.
Glass bricks, referencing clarified ice in cocktail glasses, make up the base of the front bar — a nod to Guerneville’s cocktail lounge El Barrio that Anderson co-owns. Anderson contrasts the icy look with a luxe copper top. He embraces contrast a lot in this design with differing elements, like “soft and hard, rounded and angular, luxe and casual.”
Sonoma resident and San Francisco designer Kelly Hohla created the Marine Layers family room that takes design cues from the city’s prime mood-maker: the fog. The room uses wavy lines, amorphous shapes and gradient colors from white to gray to blue with sunshiny spots of gold. The room is “layered” with playful design details, including a custom credenza made by Sonoma furniture maker Paul Benson.
The white oak cabinet has randomly spaced circular perforations (lined in bronze like tiny portholes) and hand-formed nodules on the countertop to achieve a wonderfully whimsical look.
Cloverdale-based artists and furniture studio Tuell & Reynolds added a fireplace screen to the room with clean lines and metal half-circle accents that might suggest phases of the moon. The design duo also collaborated on a coffee table featured in the showcase’s living room, designed by Geoffrey De Sousa Interior Design. The table, commissioned and designed by De Sousa, holds a ceramic medallion by Brooklyn artist Peter Lane. The table’s triangular shape and rounded corners offer a curvy contrast to the rectilinear grid of the traditionally styled wall paneling.
The home’s Moroccan-inspired dining room, by designer Julie Rootes, is completely shrouded in gathered drapes on the ceiling and walls. Sourced from Healdsburg’s Sandra Jordan Prima Alpaca, the sustainable alpaca fabric has an impossibly rich eggplant hue.
Tiles from Healdsburg-based McIntyre Tile provide elegant shine and texture in a caviar-colored laundry room by designer Fernando Castellanos. Castellanos considered the diminutive space the jewel box of the home, which he adorned with contrasting finishes of caviar: glossy cabinets and matte walls. The showstopping space features a glass jewel-shaped pendant light and a pair of fine art photos. An inspired placement of the washer and dryer on opposing sides gives the room compelling symmetry.
46th Annual San Francisco Decorator Showcase, 2935 Pacific Ave., San Francisco. April 26 – May 26, Tuesdays through Sundays; closed Mondays, except for Memorial Day. $45-$55. For tickets and information, visit DecoratorShowcase.org.