Master Work
The 9,000-square-foot Peninsula residence is an art gallery of sorts —a showcase of black, white and charcoal with color injected by prints and original artworks.
Yet one of the most impressive spaces isn’t on display to visitors: the 775-square-foot owners’ suite.
The homeowners, busy entrepreneurs, desired a private retreat endowed with the indulgences they enjoyed while traveling the West Coast for business and Europe for pleasure.
“They were going for a spa, resort-hotel feel but with the comfort of home,” says Laura Yeager Smith, whose Laura Yeager Smith Home & Design team did the project. “More high-contrast neutrals — that was their comfort zone. … They also liked a touch of modern glamour.”
Smith filled the couple’s room service order with items that make checking into a suite at a five-star hotel seem like a downgrade.
Bedroom: White oak ceiling beams and floors serve as a rustic foil for a bed frame upholstered in a velvety silver fabric and a light fixture’s glass cube surrounded by prismatic metal. “Black and white alone can be a little boring and a little too modern,” Smith says. “Adding warm neutrals and wood tones help balance that.” The mirrors over the ebony-painted bedside chests draw the eye up.
Bathtub: The bathroom’s focal point is a black soaking tub — a striking variation, Smith says, in a world where tubs are usually white. “It has a bit of a feminine form, but yet it is all solid black,” she adds. “It’s not overly feminine or masculine.”
Steam shower: The feature is both a personal steam room and a shower. “It is a touch of luxury at home that offers health benefits to combat the stress that comes with living a very busy life,” she says. Black marble tile arranged in a herringbone pattern on the rear wall of the otherwise glass-enclosed shower contrasts with a floor of Carrara mosaic tile laid in a basket-weave pattern.
Bathroom cabinetry: The quartz-topped, charcoal-stained, custom poplar vanity stores every beauty product the lady of the house owns. Shelf pullouts hidden behind a cabinet door have mirrored makeup dividers. “The top drawer can house, I want to say, 30 lipsticks,” Smith says. There’s also a perfume cabinet that’s as wide as an old-school entertainment armoire. “She has a collection of probably a hundred-plus bottles of various designers’ scents,” she says.
Her Closet: Rods on facing sides are equipped with sliding wooden ladders to facilitate floor-to-ceiling storage. Her costume jewelry collection lives in an island’s felt-lined compartmentalized drawers. Daytime lighting is supplied by a picture window with an upholstered bench underneath it for slipping in and out of shoes. “Her closet has all the bells and whistles,” Smith says.