4 minute read
VOICES Getting creative with Celia Tejada.
ART & SOUL
Everyone brings something to the table when San Francisco tastemaker Celia Tejada is hosting.
LENNY GONZALEZ
Celia Tejada at work in her San Francisco home.
S H E R R Y H O P E - K E N N E D Y S T U D I O S H K . C O M I N F O @ S T U D I O S H K . C O M 9 2 5 . 8 9 0 . 5 6 1 9
EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT, San Francisco tastemaker Celia Tejada gathers a group of family and friends at her house in the Western Addition for “tertulia.” Theevening — as suggested by the Spanish word for it — is like a literary salon. Guests discuss art, poetry, politics and love, fueling the conversation with a gourmet potluck and Tejada’s own Lake County red wine.
On the first Thursday of each month, everyone brings a poem to read. Sometimes the poetry nights have a theme, such as a current political drama or the Summer of Love. But there’s usually a constant. “It’s become a running joke among her friends,” says Katie Tamony, the former editor of Sunset magazine and a tertulia attendee, “that, of course, Celia is going to read Neruda.”
Pablo Neruda, the 20th-century Chilean poet, was a fiery writer and activist whose work is renowned for its passion and soul. And it seems fitting that Tejada is drawn to him, because those two words could describe her too.
“She’s really all about the soul,” says Diane Moore, Tejada’s longtime friend and former business partner. “Tha’s what she designs from, the beauty of her soul. It’s who she is. And when she creates, she’s just expressing who she is.”
Tejada expressed this in her role as chief creative officeof Restoration Hardware, a position she held until last November. She now expresses it at the inn she owns, Molino Tejada, in Polientes, Spain, and the 82-acre Lake County ranch she co-owns with her brother. It’s even
present at the front door of her 1890 Victorian home, where she has hung a chalkboard. On it she let a friend recently scribble a Neruda quote: “And just like that, every morning of my life I bring from a dream another dream.”
At RH, this came across as she collaborated with the company’s creative teams to bring new concepts to life. She conducted historical research, chose fabrics and helped to defin RH’s distinctive look. “What resonates with me is authenticity,” Tejada says. “I’m inspired by old world Europe and particularly my (native)
Vibrant murals, like this one by Okuda San Miguel, can be found at Molino Tejada, the luxurious inn and cultural center Tejada created in her Spanish hometown. Also pictured is chef Jesus Sanchez.
country, Spain. I look for authenticity in values, people, architecture and design.”
To understand Tejada, who recently turned 60, it helps to know where she came from, which informs everything regarding who she is and what she creates today.
Tejada grew up on a farm in the rural village of Ruerrero, in the Cantabria province of Spain. Her parents raised cattle and grew potatoes. She was one of six children and the only girl, a distinction that taught her to be fearless. “My brothers would throw me on a horse and get it running before I knew how to ride,” she says. “When you have fie brothers, you have to be feisty or they eat you alive.”
She was very close to her family — and remains so, spending every August in her family’s Ruerrero farmhouse, which she now owns. Thi sense of family continues to profoundly infl ence her design. “I would describe her design philosophy as capturing what’s most important in life: family, friends, food,” Tamony says. “It’s about the meaning of life’s moments. Thatreally infuses her work. She’s not simply designing a beautiful space. She’s imagining the wonderful things that will happen in that space.”
Her childhood also inspired her in more practical ways. As a young girl Tejada helped her brothers build stone walls and repair roofs, and she dreamed of becoming an architect. But she never went to high school and her family was poor, so she studied to become a delineante, or draftsperson, instead. When a design school opened in nearby Bilbao, she pleaded with her mother and brothers (her father had already died) to help her attend. Theyscraped
