Into the Wood
Author:Anh-Minh LeA coastal California home celebrates craftsmanship, past and present
“Keep it weird” has long been an unofficial slogan of the city of Santa Cruz. About 50 miles down the California coast, interior designer Alexis Smith and her clients—siblings who live on opposite ends of the state—brought that mindset to the Carmel Highlands, in a family vacation home adapted for multigenerational gatherings. For the founder of Carmel-by-the-Sea-based Studio Shoshin and Shop Shoshin, the motto served as a guiding principle and translated to interiors driven by craftsmanship.
Smith took cues from the dwelling’s extant defining characteristic: “The home was like an ode to wood,” she says. Although originally built in the 1920s, it had been remodeled over the years. The front door, handcrafted from a solid piece of redwood, “is representative of what we found throughout the house,” Smith continues. “The cabinetry, and even the toilet-paper holders, were done by a true craftsman who loved to work with wood. We wanted to hang on to that feeling and left as much of that original as we could. Then we tried to create new things that felt similar, so we could blur the lines between what’s old and what’s new.”
Coincidentally, when Smith and her family moved from the Bay Area to Carmel five years ago, she had toured this place when it was for sale. “There were things that could certainly be improved upon, but a light touch was needed—because there was a lot that was great too,” she remembers thinking. When she met the clients, they were united in their affection for the home’s quirky aspects, including rooms where a multitude of angles converged and wood reigned supreme. “They told me, ‘We love the house and how weird it is. We want to embrace that,’” Smith says. “That’s how I like to work anyway: The house sometimes tells you what it wants to be.”
The dual living and dining area, boasting views of the Pacific Ocean, benefited from a refresh. The floors, which had yellowed over time, were refinished with a darker stain and the vaulted ceiling, between
the rafters, was painted in Farrow & Ball’s Lime White. Smith selected a sofa, upholstered in a denim-colored chenille, and a leather-and-wood armchair—both from Lawson-Fenning—with “relatively low profiles,” she says. “We wanted the furnishings to allow your eye to travel through and appreciate the view.” One side of the room is anchored by a stone fireplace, while the other holds a dining table by Jacob May and vintage Henning Kjaernulf chairs.
Smith made one structural modification to this space, creating an opening to the kitchen, whose layout was reimagined. Out went the peninsula in favor of an island comprising a walnut frame and fluted maple drawer fronts. “Since it’s right in the middle of the room, we came up with a design for the island that was going to be interesting to look at from all sides,” she explains. “We leaned into the two-toned cabinetry that some of the bathrooms already had.” (In another nod to the bathrooms, which feature integral wood pulls, the kitchen is devoid of hardware.) Except for the brass hood—a custom design fabricated by Texas Lightsmith— the kitchen appliances are concealed behind panels of the same material used for the cabinetry: white oak, with a semitransparent green stain that allows the grain to remain visible.
The most significant changes occurred on the top floor, occupied entirely by the primary suite. Previously, the space contained sleeping quarters and an oversize bathroom with a hot tub and sauna. Smith instead envisioned a bedroom, a bathroom and an inviting lounge—making every effort to match the Douglas fir that clad this level of the house. The bathroom’s gray tadelakt walls, the work of Orit Yanai, not only break up the wood tones, but, given the venue’s various angles, proved an ideal solution. Meanwhile, caning was chosen for the front of the vanity doors, recalling furniture in the home of the clients’ grandmother.
More exuberant touches were largely earmarked for the guest accommodations. In the first-floor suite, structural and noise concerns necessitated a sheetrock ceiling; to inject visual interest, Smith lined it with a Phillip Jeffries woven wallcovering in a slightly green hue. Patterned textiles by Zak+Fox on the headboard and armchairs further punch up the space. Drawing attention in the adjoining bathroom is the Artistic Tile terrazzo with flecks of green, peach and cream on a dark background.
In the end, the project was an exercise in both creativity and restraint—“understanding the spirit and intent of the design, and what is worth saving and appreciating, yet pulling back on things that weren’t executed quite correctly,” Smith says. (Yes, the upstairs’ outdated hot tub and sauna had to go.) “I find that design is most interesting when there are these parameters,” she adds. “When you’re working with existing conditions, it gives you something to sink your teeth into.”