A Taste of Perfec tion Littman Brands serves up style and innovation at House Beautiful’s Kitchen of the Year
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What makes a kitchen the “Kitchen of the Year”? Is it technology-driven appliances, timeless style or cutting-edge innovation? The answer is all three. This year dozens of the Bay Area’s top design firms participated in the 2014 San Francisco Decorator Showcase, the annual West Coast home design event benefiting San Francisco University High School’s financial aid program. Originally built in 1907 for Rose and Alfred Sutro, the historic, nearly 9,000-square-foot mansion in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights featured exquisitely detailed woodwork, a threestory staircase and coffered skylight, a beautiful wood-paneled library, a formal wine cellar, a music room, stunning gardens and expansive views of the Presidio and San Francisco Bay. The Showcase also featured House Beautiful magazine’s first West Coast Kitchen of the Year, a must-see destination for kitchen design
and culinary happenings. Designer Steven Miller of San Francisco’s Steven Miller Design Studio transformed the 650-square-foot space into a dramatic black-and-white design. Incorporating a main cooking space, a butler’s pantry and a living room with bay views, the Kitchen of the Year also included an adjacent deck which created flow between indoors and out. Miller revamped the original kitchen design from a boring sea of beige, white and light wood into something better reflecting his whimsical yet chic design sensibility. Black-and-white wallpaper, black on black chevron backsplash tiles, white Caesarstone® countertops and white walls were on full display. Matte white floors beautifully contrasted the black enameled Kraftmaid® cabinetry, while appliances from Whirlpool’s Black Ice collection were a nice departure from typical stainless steel appliances. Green plants and trees brought in an organic feel to the monochromatic space, which also utilized an array of sparkly, light-catching details and abundant natural light. Almost all of the kitchen lighting for the Kitchen of the Year was provided by CSL® (Creative Systems Lighting). Their LED Counter Attack II lights and PDQ 24-volt LED Ultra Compact Strips were placed along the cabinetry throughout the kitchen and butler’s pantry. CSL’s LEDs also illuminated a custom crystal lighting installation in the ceiling, which served as a dazzling focal point.
Top left: The exterior of the San Francisco Decorator Showcase house, originally built in 1907 Bottom: The kitchen features black-and-white wallpaper, chevron backsplash tiles, white Caesarstone® countertops and black enameled cabinetry – in addition to a stunning LED crystal ceiling installation
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Miller designed the piece in collaboration with The NWBLK lighting designer Christopher Boots, who supplied geometric crystal spears and advised on their glowing and reflective interactions with LED light. To create this dramatic and dimensional modern art piece, Miller worked with the existing ceiling soffit to house an asymmetrically faceted steel dome structure. Unique quartz crystal elements were attached to the steel using high-powered magnets. Meanwhile, the concealed interior was lit by CSL’s PDQ 24-volt LED Ultra Compact Strip Lighting and components that were installed to the ridges of the dome and strategically aligned under the crystals, as well as behind the edge of the ceiling trim. In addition to CSL, Miller included other Littman Brands products throughout the Kitchen of the Year. He placed Hudson Valley Lighting®’s Dalton flush mount in the butler’s pantry and the dramatic Blaine pendant in the corner of the living room against windows overlooking the bay. Outside on the deck, he installed CSL’s LED Disc Dual sconces against the back wall and Troy Lighting’s sculptural Sanctuary LED pendant above the dining area. The San Francisco Decorator Showcase featured other standout fixtures from Littman Brands – over 20 fixtures total. Designer Randy McDannell utilized Hudson Valley’s Pelham and Troy’s Hangar 31 pendants in the potting shed and gardener’s retreat (featured in the Summer 2014 issue of Larger Than Light). In addition, Corbett Lighting’s shimmering Chimera chandelier commanded the entry, designed by Elan Evans and Charlotte Meyn of Sonoma Decorative Arts, and Corbett’s Cirque adorned the vestibule by Jane Richardson-Mack and John Romaidis of Jane Richardson Design. The Kitchen of the Year was featured in the October 2014 issue of House Beautiful.
Left: Light-catching details add sparkle to the monochromatic space Right: Miller utilized natural greenery to give the black-and-white kitchen an organic feel
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DESIGNER Q+A We caught up with Steven Miller to learn more about his Kitchen of the Year. What inspired your Kitchen of the Year design? We wanted to create something new, different and eye-catching. We were inspired by the beauty of the building, built in 1907 for Rose and Alfred Sutro, and wanted to create something that conjured the elegance and grandeur Designer Steven Miller of that era. We used a black-andwhite color palette that is, at first impression, high contrast. Texture, reflectivity, and sheen were also employed to define and accentuate the different surfaces in this design.
Black-and-white is a bold choice for a kitchen, yet it works perfectly in this space. What made you choose this monochromatic palette? Kitchens are inherently filled with color. Whether it’s delicious fruits and vegetables, foods, people, or in this case, stunningly colorful views which reflect in an array of materials that appear black at first glance. The room itself and the design of the kitchen provide a backdrop and frame for all of this color. Describe the space before your renovations. What were the challenges of designing for this space? This kitchen had been around for quite some time. I believe it had been remodeled in the 1980s. It still had butcher block countertops and beige cabinets and floral wallpaper – hallmarks of that era. Despite that, the layout and work triangle were fairly efficient, so we used much of that layout in extending our design forward. The biggest challenges were in removing a large pantry to make the rooms feel more connected and the quick turnaround we had in completing the project.
Troy Lighting’s Sanctuary LED pendant is a sculptural addition to the outside dining area
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Newell Turner, editor-in-chief of House Beautiful, said, “Kitchens are the new American living rooms. They are the center of the home.” Do you agree with this statement? I do agree with Mr. Turner! West Coast designers have been designing large rooms with adjoining kitchens and outdoor areas for casual living for years. I think that this has really caught on as the norm. I can’t help but think about how whenever I am anywhere with a more traditional plan (formal living and dining rooms), it doesn’t matter what is done to entice people into these other rooms. Everyone always gathers in the kitchen! How did you approach the kitchen lighting? We wanted to cover our bases with good ambient, task and decorative lighting. We used CSL’s architectural lighting for ambience, their undercabinet lighting and downlighting for task, and decorative fixtures from Hudson Valley Lighting® and Troy Lighting to enhance the design and mood of the space. The large custom cove feature that we designed in collaboration with Christopher Boots is something that crosses over. It was designed for its dramatic visual effects but was also very useful in creating ambient light within the kitchen. Tell us more about how this dramatic lighting installation came to be. I have a furniture and lighting gallery in San Francisco called The NWBLK (The New Black). We introduced a Melbourne-based, Australian lighting designer named Christopher Boots to the American market in 2012. One of Christopher’s signatures is his use of quartz crystals in very dramatic and beautiful light fixtures. Mike Medieros, a designer in my office, built a computer model of the concept, which we shared along with drawings, and Christopher advised us on how to achieve the best effects with the elements that we were working with. We adjusted the shape of the kitchen cove and installed a metal armature to accommodate magnet-backed quartz crystals and CSL PDQ 24-volt LED Ultra Compact Strip lights. The effect was beguiling. It was so fun to watch people enter the room, look up and drop their jaws in sheer amazement! Did you enjoy working with CSL’s lighting? We were very pleased with the utility and flexibility of the CSL LED strip lights that we used extensively throughout this design. We enjoyed pushing the boundaries with this product, and it afforded us the means to create a very dramatic light fixture in the ceiling while also allowing us to effectively light cabinets and shelves from within. I also think that this technology allowed for a very seamless and expedited installation. We were able to install the strip lights and drivers quickly, and this allowed us to take the time to carefully place each and every crystal in the fixture to maximize sparkle and output. What inspired you to choose Hudson Valley Lighting’s Blaine pendant to hang in the living room against the backdrop of the bay? The fixture has a vague reference to the Wiener Werkstätte period, for which I have a great affinity. I was immediately inspired by the beauty of the fixture itself and believed that it would make a very L AR GER T H AN LIGHT | WINTE R
Hudson Valley Lighting®’s Blaine pendant is set against the windows overlooking the bay in the living room
dramatic yet utilitarian addition to the room. We opted to hang it low so it had the lighting effect of a floor lamp next to a reading chair. This effectively conjured the image of a full moon over the San Francisco Bay, which is the view out of the window. You chose Troy Lighting’s Sanctuary pendant to hang outside over the deck. What made you choose this fixture, as well as the other outdoor lights like CSL’s LED Disc Dual wall sconces? The Disc Dual sconces were used for ambient light on the deck, and the Sanctuary pendant was hung over an outdoor dining table. It had a tremendously beautiful lighting effect, throwing shadows on the table area while lighting the surface of the table very well. Its sculptural aspects helped create an artful drama whether it was lit or not. What is your favorite Littman Brands fixture and why? I love many of the fixtures Littman makes; however, I might have to choose the CSL LED strip light for its flexibility and utility that allows me as a designer to use it in many different ways across all projects.
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