The Memory Keepers

“We always tell our clients, it is our job to create physical manifestations of their internal worlds,” says Homan Rajai of San Francisco-based Studio Ahead. The studio he runs with Elena Dendiberia is multidisciplinary, with services including interior design, styling and art curation – and in this house in Berkeley, California, all of those things seem to come together. The art feels integral to both the architecture and the interiors: here, there are doorways inspired by ceremonial portals and sculptures repurposed as table bases.

The homeowners are in their mid-60s, with a lifetime of travelling and collecting behind them, and their home is now a more authentic reflection of their lives. Studio Ahead’s raw material was the couple’s 1914-built house on a tree-lined street, where craftsmanship was already inherent in the architecture: this wasn’t about a clean sweep, but finding a way to weave in the owners’ treasures – all of them with memories attached – and supplement them with pieces from local artists and artisans.

“It’s so lucky to have clients who already have objects they resonate with; it drives us into new worlds to explore and expand on as we add new layers,” says Rajai. He adds that “nothing is precious” and so there is a creative and open approach to reuse: the carpet runner that flows from the hallway up the stairs and forks on the landing is made from stitched-together antique rugs; while two sculptures by Texan artist Jeffie Bewer now make up the base of the dining room table.

The house was built at the height of the US Arts & Crafts movement, and this project carries that spirit with it. Rajai notes how the property’s more cellular layout allowed for each room to have its own personality and colour scheme – “now that everything is open in modern architecture, we don’t often get that opportunity” – while the palette of materials resonates with Arts & Crafts references, including inlaid paper rope used for a custom cabinet in the hallway and the dining room ceiling, and rich timbers such as oak and walnut.

The many copper details are another Arts & Crafts reference, but in fact have later origins. The house already had some copper wall lights by Kip Mesirow, the famed local craftsman who built Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse for Alice Waters in the 1970s, and the lights made to the same design as the restaurant. As a point of reference for local culture and creativity, they couldn’t be more apt. “They are so beautiful, so we wanted to continue the language throughout the house,” says Rajai. “Copper reflects light so softly.”

Drawing out that material thread, there are contemporary Oscar pendant lights by Roman and Williams Guild in the hallway and above the breakfast table, while Studio Ahead designed the verdigris-finish powder room basin, alongside a custom pivoting mirror and wall lights.

The architecture here may be rectilinear, but the interiors are joyfully irregular in many places, revelling in imperfection and asymmetry. Studio Ahead commissioned local wood sculptor Ido Yoshimoto – who divides his time between Japan and California – to make the chunky geometric doorway surround between the living room and library, and a complementary mantel shelf.

“The clients both resonated with the feelings from their travels in Japan,” explains Rajai about the decision to work with Yoshimoto, “and we started thinking about the experience of portals when entering a tea ceremony – how it asks you to move into a new frequency. We wanted to do the same thing with the transition from the living room to the library. How important is it to read, and how impossible is it becoming with the world we live in? Having a library is almost antiquated and old-world now. So we wanted to give the library honour.”

Objects from Studio Ahead’s own Sheep collection – made using felt from Northern Californian sheep, in soft, cloud-like rounded forms – create further idiosyncratic moments. An extra-large floor cushion lies on the library floor, while there’s a dark grey Sheep bed in the main bedroom, complemented by a grey bouclé chair by Maiden Home. Hand-making has a constant, life-affirming presence: the bedroom features a tapestry by LA-based artist Christy Matson and bedside lamps with endearingly wonky bamboo and paper lampshades on a ceramic base by Bennet Schlesinger.

Rajai says that, through close associations with local craftspeople, “it’s impossible not to create a sense of identity” for each of Studio Ahead’s projects. But this home is just as much about the way a talented studio can take its clients’ memories and possessions and weave them, dream-like, through a space that has already seen more than a century of life. The house may have a strong point of view, but that’s because it tells the story of lives that have been richly lived.