Makers & Designers
San Francisco Decorator Showcase Features Three Marin Design Firms
Rendering by Clay Seibert A mainstay of Bay Area creative culture since 1977, the San Francisco Decorator Showcase is back for another year, celebrating some of the region’s top interior and landscape designers while also raising funds for San Francisco University High School’s financial aid program. This year’s showcase takes place in the Sea Cliff neighborhood, and among the Bay Area designers transforming an 18th-century-style Mediterranean Spanish house are three Marin-based design firms. Built in 1927 and located at 625 El Camino Del Mar, the three-level home will be open from April 29 to May 29 for visitors to appreciate its fresh look.
Larkspur’s Lauren Berry of Ross design firm Lauren Berry Interior Design has returned to the showcase for the second time. This year, Berry applied her expertise to the kitchen, which she’s designed with convenience and style in mind. Drawing inspiration from the culinary term “mise en place,” the design emphasizes the importance of planning and preparation and the use of high-quality ingredients: “For this kitchen I selected timeless white oak cabinets, Calacatta marble and black metal finishes, which resonate with the home’s original Mediterranean architecture and finishes.” The kitchen also includes professional-chef-caliber Hestan cooking appliances and cleverly hidden storage spaces. The full-width marble waterfall island is a spacious prep area and offers seating for four, making it as much of a gathering space as the welcoming seating spot tucked away in the corner of the room.
Mother-daughter design team Eugenia and Emma Jesberg of EJ Interior Design have taken on one of the kid’s rooms, Sedona’s Bedroom and Bathroom Suite. For Emma’s first showcase and Eugenia’s fourth, the Tiburon-based firm has designed vibrant rooms that will turn daily routines into uniquely fun experiences: “Based on the idea that colors and shapes can inspire and persuade cheerfulness, this is an environment that will foster creativity, artistic energy and imagination by living on and off the canvas.” The concepts for these rooms play off each other, both of them designed to invoke positivity and playfulness. A custom bed inspired by the 1980s Memphis movement is a showstopper, with soft, geometric shapes that fit together in interesting ways. Meanwhile, a multicolored, made-to-measure mosaic and custom-colored plumbing and light fixtures make the bathroom stand out.
Returning to the showcase for a fourth time, Ross firm Shelley and Company Interior Design has been working its magic on the playroom, designing a creative space that’s meant to conjure the inner child in us all. Principal designer Shelley Cahan and her team have created a whimsical environment for the young ladies who live here, centering the room around a full-scale mural from French fashion designer Christian Lacroix. The colors and the subject matter of the mural were the inspiration for the design of the room, which has been transformed into a visual and tactile experience meant to delight all the senses and be enjoyed by the children for years to come: “An indoor playroom, with every imaginable opportunity to embrace the different stages of their youth, has always been our design goal.”
