This Edgy Metropolis Loft Is a Revolt In opposition to Typical Design
This textual content initially appeared inside the September 2011 issue of ELLE DECOR. For additional tales from our archive, subscribe to ELLE DECOR All Entry.
Throughout the early Nineties, Steven Volpe was a pioneer of loft residing in San Francisco—the first explicit particular person to maneuver proper right into a 75-year-old reworked Regular Electrical warehouse inside the rising neighborhood commonly known as SoMa, or South of Market. The developing was considered one of many metropolis’s first loft conversions. “Everyone thought I was crazy,” says the within designer, who had simply recently based mostly his private company after working for quite a few of the city’s elite decorators, along with Anthony Hail and Eleanor Ford.
Throughout the residing area, a painting by Jef Verheyen hangs above a sofa of Volpe’s design upholstered in a Gretchen Bellinger linen velvet; cork cubes by Martin Szekely flank a French cocktail desk, the traditional Mongolian lambskin chair is by Franco Albini, and the wire sculpture is by Forrest Myers.
Nonetheless whereas Volpe has on a regular basis been adventurous, he is moreover drawn to customized. Fairly than emulate the high-tech vogue then synonymous with loft residing in cities like New York, he tried in its place to straddle every worlds, making a classical look all through the previous warehouse, with its double-height brick wall and genuine redwood beams. “I was attempting to be very grownup and to please all my mentors concurrently,” says Volpe. “It was all very tasteful. Nevertheless it absolutely wasn’t me.”
He lived that method for only a few years, until sometime, as Volpe was descending the staircase from his mattress room to the loft’s hovering residing space, that adorning scheme he had so rigorously crafted immediately felt all unsuitable. “I keep in mind wanting spherical and pondering, That’s all irrelevant,” Volpe says. “There had been a change of centuries, nevertheless I wasn’t transferring forward fast ample. I noticed that I wished to start out out all through.”
The epiphany pressured Volpe, as he locations it, “once more to the white internet web page.” He began to rethink not solely how he wished to furnish his residence, however as well as what he hoped to face for as a designer. Alongside one of the best ways, he discovered his voice as a decorator who’s as cerebral as he is intelligent. Volpe creates thought-provoking environments that quietly stimulate the entire senses—sight, sound, odor, contact, and even model. And nothing exemplifies his technique greater than his private glamorous loft, from its edgy art work assortment and intriguing furnishings and objects to its luxurious particulars.
Traditional armchairs embody a consuming desk Volpe designed with Roth Martin, the aluminum bookshelves are by Martin Szekely, and the sunshine fixture is a design from the Nineteen Fifties.
He began by befriending sellers, attending art work gala’s, and shopping for vital artworks for consumers. He was notably drawn to conceptual art work and purchased different objects for his home: a shadow {{photograph}} by the updated Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto; a perforated terra-cotta plaque from the Nineteen Fifties by the Italian artist Lucio Fontana; a mixed-media collage by Sterling Ruby, whereby streaks of pink nail polish jag all through a mirrored background.
Volpe steadily divested his residence of one thing he deemed “mediocre.” He curated every object that crossed his threshold, from the Japanese cutlery in his kitchen (Michel Bras for KAI) to his German dinner porcelain (KPM of Berlin). The partitions have been repainted in claylike hues from Farrow & Ball. “I’d pretty have only a few points with integrity,” he says, “like a simple orange crate, a fantastic stereo system, and a single chair, than a roomful of junk. Each little factor has to have which suggests.”
The bleached-mahogany kitchen cabinetry is by Volpe, and the backsplash and countertop are of Calacatta Oro marble; the cooktop and oven are by Wolf, and the sink and fittings are by Franke.
Not that he ever had any intention of residing like a faculty pupil. The globe-trotting designer is persistently discovering treasures and supply them residence. He bought a Burmese carved-wood owl from one among his mentors, Belgian antiques vendor Axel Vervoordt. From a favorite retailer in Paris, the cutting-edge Galerie Kreo, he ordered a limited-edition T5 bookcase by Martin Szekely, a designer he deems “essential explicit particular person working in sculptural furnishings proper now.” The Japanese marriage ceremony ceremony incense that he burns each morning is imported from a kimono retailer in Tokyo, the place he first discovered it.
Throughout the mattress room, Volpe designed the sconces and mattress, which is upholstered in a Rose Tarlow leather-based and dressed with Pratesi linens; the bedside cabinet and armchairs are by Frits Henningsen, the Nineteen Fifties commode is by Jacques Adnet, the mirror is by Line Vautrin, and the {{photograph}} is by Hiroshi Sugimoto.
The residing area’s showstopper is a console, fabricated from galvanized tin and brass shaped to seem like materials, by the late San Francisco decorator John Dickinson. “He took an industrial supplies and manipulated it into one factor fluid and stylish,” says Volpe. A Ron Arad Oh-Void chair, a gravity-defying design consisting of two biomorphic ovals that rock forwards and backwards, was one among his earliest acquisitions of newest art work furnishings. “I was strolling by a retailer on the rue de Seine in Paris after I truly did a double take,” he says. “It appears to be inconceivable—two voids, merely air, with no help. It couldn’t have been achieved with out carbon fiber.”
Volpe’s enthusiasm for design that blurs the boundaries between furnishings and art work has impressed a side enterprise. For the earlier eight years, he has owned a San Francisco gallery, Hedge, with enterprise affiliate Roth Martin. One Hedge artist, California ceramist Tony Marsh, created the white earthenware varieties (whose a complete bunch of perforations are painstakingly created with a Dremel drill) that Volpe exhibits atop the Dickinson console. Volpe and Martin generally collaborate on their very personal furnishings designs, such as a result of the loft’s Nakashima-inspired live-edge walnut consuming desk, full with nickel butterfly joints, which is large ample to seat a dozen firm.
The mattress room’s desk by Jean-Michel Frank holds lamps by Jacques Quinet, the armchair is by Henningsen, and the oak-and-suede armoire is Volpe’s private design.
That the loft’s whole affect is relaxed and livable is a testament to Volpe’s expertise and training as a designer. “You presumably can’t be a up to date painter in the event you occur to haven’t been classically expert, so that you perceive what tips you’re breaking,” he says as a result of the morning light streams by the use of the greenhouse window on the rear of the loft. “It’s the equivalent with decoration. I spotted what was relevant and proper, and now I may also break these tips. I mesh art work and decor—it is the place I want to be in my twenty first century.”
Tour Steven Volpe’s San Francisco Loft
This story initially appeared inside the September 2011 issue of ELLE DECOR.
Ingrid Abramovitch, the Govt Editor at ELLE Decor, writes about design, construction, renovation, and lifestyle, and is the author of quite a few books on design along with Restoring a Residence inside the Metropolis.
