At the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach, AD100 designer Sara Story brought to life the Shangri-La lounge, an oasis of cacti and sculptural furniture that paid homage to Mexican architect Luis Barragán’s penchant for texture and color blocking. “In the midst was this cabinet by Reynold Rodriguez from the Charles Burnand Gallery, which sat in an undulating niche. It created such a unique focal point, almost like a wink,” she says. Rodriguez’s curio, crafted from sculpted and molded plaster, sat on a base of hurricane-felled mahogany, and Story loved how it offered a strong juxtaposition to the room’s patterns and vivid hues. “The curves of the cabinet echoed those in the sofa and Percival Lafer chairs,” she explains. “It was important to me to have all of these contrasting elements but keep a sense of balance.”
Ingenious storage solutions
A rounded wall in Lark + Palm’s guest suite at the San Francisco Decorator Showcase afforded the Sausalito-based AD PRO Directory studio the opportunity to brighten the corner with a striking oak desk and bookshelves. Considering it was a petite bedroom, founding principals Ansley Majit and Stephanie Waskins knew that the wall needed to make a statement as bold as the one behind the adjacent twin beds.
“We wanted to create the feeling of a classic writing table with a contemporary spin, which is why we decided to float the pieces rather than add bracketing or legs. Wrapping them around the wall was a given, but we spent a lot of time poring over the details of the drawer placement and the steps of the beading detail,” says Majit. Custom-designed by Lark + Palm, fabricated by Di Build, and adorned with Nest Studio hardware, the desk and shelves were bolstered by a bespoke chair that nodded to the screen-like headboard and angles on the bed wall. The corner served as “a reflection of the whole room,” adds Majit, “a combination of masculine and feminine, contemporary and traditional.”
