Koenig's Last Commission: This Malibu listing was designed by...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, March 6, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

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Betty's Custom Designed Live/Work Home House Tour

Name: Betty
Location: Chelsea, Manhattan, New York
Size: 1400 square feet, 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath
Years Lived In: 4

Betty bought a commercial office space in a large mixed-use — but office oriented — building and turned it into both an interior design office for herself and her assistant and a comfortable home for herself and her 11 year old daughter.

Betty works and lives in the same place and yet, she has made a very successful division between work and play. Her two small offices open off the main living space and have large sliding opaque doors that can be shut at night to become visually interesting elements in and of themselves.

As an interior designer, Betty can sit at her kitchen counter, which doubles as a conference table, and use her own home as a showcase for her work. Other blurred lines between work and home life include the coffee table, which is also a flat file for drawings.

After gutting the original space, Betty knew she would have limited space to carve into two bedrooms, bathrooms, a den and a laundry room. Knowing that she and her daughter would share a bathroom and that it would be a heavily trafficked room in her home, Betty opted to apportion more space for the bathroom and less for her own bedroom.

Betty has created intimate spaces within an open plan using a mix of materials and a muted color palette. The result is very warm and cozy while practical and well thought through.

Apartment Therapy Survey

Style: Modern, efficient, comfortable, clean, custom.

Inspiration: So many things...

Favorite Element: Floating wood wall

Biggest Challenge: Storage and office and home all in one space

What Friends Say: Will you do my place?

Biggest Embarrassment: Not being techy

Proudest DIY: Installing the cork wall in my office

Biggest Indulgence: Furniture, closet interiors, rugs!

Best Advice: Over plan for storage and think it ALL thru before making one purchase.

Dream Source: Interior Design Magazine

Resources:

LIVING ROOM
• Sectional sofa by B&B Italia, fabric by DONGHIA
• Custom Chair; fabric by Pierre Frey
• Pillow fabric by Pierre Frey, Bergamo, Holly Hunt
• Side table by Jens Risom
• Lamp by BBDW
• Rug by Odegard
• Bowl by Calvin Klein

MASTER BATHROOM
• Custom Cabinetry by Andre
• Glass Tile and stone countertop by Stone Source
• Glass doors by Manhattan Glass Co
• Vintage rug by Odegard

MEDIA ROOM
• Sofa custom in Pierre Frey fabric
• Club chairs by Donghia in Fadini Borghi fabric
• Custom chalk top table, design by bettyhome
• Rug by Odegard

Thanks, Betty!

Images: Jill Slater

• HOUSE TOUR ARCHIVE Check out past house tours here
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On the Market: Gem of a House Designed By San Francisco Favorite Willis Polk

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, July 21, 2011, by Sally Kuchar Before we get into the "oohs" and "aahs" of this place, we first need to decide which neighborhood it's in. According to the MLS, it's "Downtown." But it's a safe bet to assume most San Francisco dwellers (aside from realtors) would never suggest that 843 Mason between Pine and California is Downtown. Is it the Tendernob? Many believe (Ed. note: like me) that the Tendernob stops at Pine and Nob Hill starts at California. (The MLS says that Nob Hill starts at California and ends at Broadway, with eastern and western borders of Stockton and Van Ness). So where does that leave 843 Mason? One might suggest that this is Nob Hill territory, as it's a mere house away from the alley Nob Hill Place and half a block from Huntington Park. But whatever, let's squabble amongst ourselves in the comments about which neighborhood this abode belongs to.

It's a single-family home. That's right. And it's approximately 4,360-square-feet of living space on four levels. There are five bedrooms and five bathrooms. Asking price? $2,595,000. This is a classic (and classy) San Francisco jewel. It was designed in 1917 by renowned architect Willis Polk, who designed San Francisco staples such as the Pacific Union Club, the Palace of Fine Arts, the reconstruction of Mission Dolores and the Hallidie Building.

Property highlights: the master suite takes up the entire top level and has access to a large and private roof deck; the entry level has the guest suite, so you don't have to worry about bumping elbows when you and your guests are both trying to brush your teeth in the morning and the home is located directly across the street from the Mark Hopkins Hotel, so there's that. Property lowlights include no garage and no word on leased parking nearby.
· 843 Mason [Redfin]

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House of the Day: Riverside Drive Mansion From The Guy Who Designed Carnegie Hall

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, February 7, 2011, by Rob

Have a nomination for a jaw-dropping listing that would make a mighty fine House of the Day? Get thee to the tipline and send us your suggestions. We'd love to see what you've got.

Location: New York, N.Y.
Price: $20,000,000
The Skinny: Built in 1909 for a Turkish tobacco baron, this French Renaissance-style house was designed by the architect behind Carnegie Hall, William B. Tuthill. Tuthill's design includes 12,000 square feet of living space, a hallway lined in Egyptian marble and Turkish glass, a smoking room (naturally), a dazzling green tiled roof, and, remarkably, an underground passage under the street leading out to the Hudson River. The secret escape hatch is now sealed, and that might be a small part of why this house is having so much trouble finding a new owner. When it first hit the market back in 2006, the asking price was a jaw-dropping $31M. Over in the heart of the Upper East Side, that price might be run of the mill, but for the way uptown address at 107th and Riverside Drive? It's none too surprising that the house has endured some substantial price chopping in the past four odd years. By March of last year, the 41-foot-wide mansion was asking $24.9M. Today, it remains on the market for $20M. Still quite the pretty penny, but no matter what the current owner manages to get for it, he probably stands to make a tidy profit. A Columbia Law professor, he purchased the mansion in 1979 for just $325K.
· Riverside Drive [BHS]
· $25M Riverside Drive Mansion Makes Annual Return to Market [CurbedNY]
· An Opulent Home, a Rich Past [NYT]

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One Pampered Pup: Designed by Japanese firm Atelier Kuu,...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, February 1, 2011, by Sarah

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Moonlighting: Who Knew Diane von Furstenberg Designed a Home Line For Sears?

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, January 20, 2011, by Sarah

Welcome to Moonlighting, a new Curbed column in which the talented Raina Cox of If the Lamp Shade Fits takes a look at design players whose first job may not have been design. Some triumph, some flop, and some should never, ever give up their day job.

1982 Sears ad

The new line of bedding, bath, and tabletop by Studio 54 alumnus and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is actually her second go-at-it in the home-furnishings arena. Shortly after the famous 1976 Newsweek cover story declaring her the most marketable designer since Coco Chanel, DVF was approached to create bedding for Sears. Not content to limit herself to the boudoir, DVF countered with a deal to create an entire branded home collection, in doing so beating Ralph Lauren to the punch by six years.

The grandly named Diane von Furstenberg Style for Living Collection encompassed bedding, bath, curtains, dinnerware, rugs, and furniture. "Designing furniture for Sears was harder [than other categories]," she writes in her memoir. "The furniture people were also harder to work with. They didn't feel I had the qualifications to design furniture. But I learned from them as well."

Sold exclusively in Sears stores and catalogs, the line enjoyed immense popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. DVF's image of haute hippie Euro princess turned mega-designer and successful businesswoman played well with her newly liberated American customer. Buying jungle bloom sheets could transport a Midwestern housewife to DVF's jet-set world of exotic travel, Brazilian lovers, and art world companions.

New collections for the line played off previous designs and were introduced seasonally. Shoppers were given a reason to regularly refresh their homes with the assurance that new purchases would coordinate perfectly—a genius marketing strategy. "Years later," she writes, "I would use that same concept in clothes by building a coordinated wardrobe piece by piece in the line I sell on television." In its seven-year run (1977 to 1984), Style for Living's annual sales grew from $35 million to more than $100 million.

That present-day collection riffs on her upscale boho clothing designs, featuring boldly colored and wildly patterned housewares—not to mention unusually geometric tableware (below) that's a deviation from the old standard. DVF describes the pieces as "not a matching collection but a language" designed to "combine effortlessly with a woman's own finds." This, of course, presumes a certain existing flair on the customer's part. The line, which was featured in the CFDA's designer showhouse in NYC this fall, offers bedding and dinnerware with future plans for furniture and home accessories. Having never met a licensing deal she didn't sign, DVF has also recently made over several suites at Claridge's Hotel in London and designed floor coverings for The Rug Company.

Photo: O, The Oprah Magazine

· Diane: A Signature Life by Diane Von Furstenberg and Linda Bird Francke [Google Books]
· "Under the Volcano with Diane von Furstenberg" [NYMag]
· Get an Early Look at DVF Home at the Aldyn's Showhouse [Racked NY]
· All Diane von Furstenberg coverage [Curbed National]
· Diane von Furstenberg's New Venture [Elle Decor]
· Piano Suite by DVF [Claridge's]
· Diane von Furstenberg [The Rug Company]

View the original article here