An interior designer's warm and layered San Francisco terraced house
In the US, the practice of house buyers wooing sellers with heartfelt letters and touching videos is fairly common. So interior designer Lauren Weiss is quite happy to admit that she and her husband Eli begged the then owners of this terraced house in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighbourhood to sell to them when it had come onto the market. ‘I basically sent them a love letter with a picture of our daughters,’ she recalls, laughing. Luckily, the heartstrings approach worked and the couple and their two young girls moved into the house in 2016.
Lauren, who grew up in Los Angeles, moved to San Francisco just over 20 years ago after university. ‘I had no idea that I would end up putting down roots here, but it felt like a city with a good balance,’ she says. For years, Lauren and Eli had been renting apartments in Cow Hollow – so-called because cattle used to graze on the land – a desirable neighbourhood not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. However, with the arrival of their two daughters (who are now aged nine and 11), they were running out of space.
‘When we started looking for houses, I realised that I was wedded to about three streets around where we were living,’ Lauren explains. This house, built in 1911 and just a block down from where the couple had been renting, immediately appealed. Unlike almost all the properties they had viewed, the three-storey terrace had not been overhauled by developers. What is more, the changes that had been made during a previous renovation in 1999 were thoughtful and to Lauren’s taste. These included the addition of a huge floor-to-ceiling steel-framed window in the kitchen. ‘It felt like the kind of feature you’d find in a brownstone in New York and was so timeless,’ she says.
The layout worked well and has remained the same. On the raised ground floor, an entrance hall leads to a formal sitting room at the front of the house, with the kitchen, dining room and orangery-like family room (complete with the original wavy-glass windows) at the south-facing rear. Three bedrooms, one of which has an en-suite bathroom, unfold across the first floor, while there is a spare room, Lauren’s home studio and a bathroom-cum-laundry room in the attic.
With such good bones to work with, Lauren – who set up on her own as an interior designer in 2012 after working with a local design firm – was itching to make a few tweaks. Although the initial plan was simply to overhaul the main bedroom’s en-suite bathroom, the renovations quickly grew beyond craning in slabs of marble and led to the entire house being rewired.
The upside – much to Lauren’s delight – was that it gave her the chance to ‘sneak through’ a few more decorative changes. ‘Because the house is sandwiched in a terrace, we get light only at the front and at the back, so I wanted to bring in more where I could,’ she explains. Lauren kept the colours fresh throughout to create an airy feel. These include an earthy pink for the formal sitting room, a warm white for the family room and a taupe grasscloth for the attic bedroom. Wood floors were painted white, while the windowless dining room, which leads onto the family room, was fitted with panelling – designed to provide a background for a pair of large Chinese ancestor portraits inherited from Eli’s grandmother – and painted in a soft green gloss. ‘It’s lovely in candlelight, but also reflects the light that comes through from the family room in the day,’ she enthuses. The kitchen remained largely unchanged, bar the new cooker hood, handles for the units and simple white tiles for the splashback.
Aside from these interventions, much of Lauren’s energy was focused on furnishing the space. ‘Because of the layout, it felt like I was creating a British townhouse. So this became my guiding inspiration,’ she explains. This influence came to the fore in the choice of fabrics and wallpapers. Robert Kime’s ‘Sunburst’ wallpaper enlivens the ceiling in the entrance hall, while Lauren responded to her younger daughter’s plea for a ‘princess bed’ with the length of pretty Penny Morrison fabric that hangs majestically in her room. In the main bedroom, the bed is flanked by panels of de Gournay wallpaper, giving the effect of an extended headboard and making the most of the high ceiling.
Much of the furniture came from Europe. ‘I find that what you can get from European suppliers is just superior,’ explains Lauren, who sourced most of the pieces via websites like 1stDibs and Vinterior. ‘I like to have a mix of designs from different periods.’ In the family room, for instance, a leather Arne Norell sofa – which was brought over from Paris and was initially fragrant with cigarette smoke – is juxtaposed with a traditional armchair and a set of sculptural wooden side tables by Brooklyn design studio Fort Standard.
In the more formal sitting room, a new sofa from Cisco Home sits gracefully alongside one by Swedish designer Carl Malmsten and a sculptural fibreglass chair by Vico Magistretti. ‘My approach is all about combining elements to give spaces a layered feel,’ says Lauren. ‘I wanted every piece I chose to be beautiful, but also practical.’ Much like the whole house.
Sam Frost1/8Units repainted in Benjamin Moore’s ‘Marina Gray’ are complemented by a pale Fireclay Tile splashback.
Sam Frost2/8An Eero Saarinen ‘Tulip’ table base with a bespoke oak top is paired with Bensen’s ‘Torii’ dining chairs.
Sam Frost3/8Phillip Jeffries' ‘Manila Hemp' graphite wallcovering sets off the ceiling in Robert Kime's ‘Sunburst’ terracotta wallpaper.
Sam Frost4/8A headboard in Pierre Frey’s ‘Cheyenne’ linen is framed by panels of de Gournay’s ‘Abstract Pines’ design in the main bedroom.
Sam Frost5/8A canopy in Penny Morrison’s ‘Kalindi’ blue/yellow linen tones with walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Cromarty’ in the daughter's bedroom.
Sam Frost6/8Marble provides the backdrop for a Waterworks bathtub and the vintage Gilbert Marklund stool.
Sam Frost7/8In the studio, a vintage Göran Malmvall desk is partnered by a Henning Kjaernulf ‘Razor Blade’ chair. A sofa upholstered in Guy Goodfellow Collection’s ‘Olive Sacking’ and a 19th-century Hoshiarpur octagonal side table contribute to the relaxed feel.
Sam Frost8/8Janus et Cie furniture creates an inviting seating area in the garden.
