If you take a walk down Marina Boulevard just across from Marina Green, you can't help but notice one standout house—a 1930 Spanish Revival home that's been brought dizzyingly into the 21st century thanks to a tattoo of kaleidoscopic swirls on its otherwise white and gray-shuttered facade.
The installation signals the opening of the 2018 San Francisco Decorator Showcase, which has transformed the house with the help of 20 top Northern California interior and landscape designers. Now in its 41st year, this is also the first year that the design-y fundraiser—this year benefitting the financial aid program of San Francisco University High School—has popped up in the Marina.
Built by the architect George McCrea, the home now brims with decor as thoughtful and stunning as its expansive views of the Golden Gate Bridge and SF Bay. Announced by the aforementioned exterior painting by Seattle native turned SF local AJ Oishi, in collaboration with Simon Breitbard Fine Arts, each of its rooms pops with a unique theme and a name to match.
In Lararia Guest Refuge, San Mateo–based Kari McIntosh channels her recent honeymoon to Italy's Herculaneum ruins with black clay and 24-karat gold snakes, created by Linda Fahey of Yonder, that spiral above the bed, flanked by charred nightstands and overlooked by a dramatic chandelier.
In designer Dina Bandman's Lemondrop Lullaby nursery, we were swaddled in an intricate but calming paradise with vines growing over mint walls and hand-embroidered lemons with sequins blossoming; the wall design flows seamlessly onto the custom curtains so the tree continues to flourish uninterrupted. A custom-made Lucite Plexi-Craft four poster crib stands as the perfect centerpiece—stylish, but allowing for the pattern of the room to shine.
A retro reverie takes place in Tangerine dream by Willem Racké Studio and Susan Chastain, with fabulous mid-century modern furniture, ombre patterns in the curtains, and wall art from Dolby Chadwick Gallery.
Upstairs, the rosé lounge by Coddington Design has plum and pink walls, a plush Adrian Pearsall tufted sofa to match, and a chic DeMuro Das mirror made from glossy black lacquer and hand-carved gilded copper.
Across the hall, Jeff Schlarb's Ten Thousand Dreams nails the ultra luxe master bedroom—screaming character, it drips with rich sapphire and saffron hues. Minimalists, meanwhile, would drool over A Room of Her Own by Heather Deragon. Inspired by moments of stillness in the morning, the hygge space looks like a page straight out of Kinfolk.
(Photography by Gillian Walsworth)
// April 28 – May 28, 2018; 10am to 3pm (Tuesday-Thursday, Saturday), 10am to 7pm (Friday), 11am to 4pm (Sunday and Memorial Day); 465 Marina Blvd. (Marina). Tickets ($40) are available at the door, and all funds raised directly support the San Francisco University High School Financial Aid Program, decoratorshowcase.org.
