MICHAEL SMITH
By Susanna Salk for 1stdibs
“People tend to categorize me as a California designer, but a big portion of my work is on the East Coast and international,” says celebrated designer Michael Smith.  But his West Coast birthplace did inform his design sensibility. “I never grew up with the idea of how something must look. People come to California to build their dream house,” says Smith. “The result is a Georgian mansion next to a Victorian that is next to a ranch. I got an aesthetic freedom from seeing that.  So if I am doing an apartment on Park Avenue, I don’t feel I have this rigid obligation to make it a certain way.”
Whether it’s a house in Mallorca, two others in Mexico (with architect Ricardo Legoretta), a camp in Lake Placid, suites at the Lowell Hotel in New York or a private residence in Carter’s Grove, Virginia, Smith’s work doesn’t just reflect his distinctive take on design, but also his ability to bring three-dimensional reality to other people’s dreams and make them into  very real and functioning fantasies. He does this by blending and infusing the varied pieces of culture and design that inspire him on a daily basis. “I just revisited Malmaison in France and was completely taken by the scale and detail. And I love Lee Grant’s house in the movie,“Shampoo.” Lately, I’ve been really into the 50’s abstract painter Michael Goldberg and the light in Arizona. It’s a constant, eclectic mix, and my job is to pull out the many parts and apply them whenever possible.” Part dreamer and realist, Smith attributes the end result to something greater than the sum of its parts. “ Fusing all the ideas together into a coherent whole involves a little alchemy. If a house works, it involves an element of magic you can’t explain.”

After getting his decorative arts training at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, (“I wanted to know all the rules so I could either follow them or break them”), Smith went on to work for legendary designer John Saladino before eventually going off to design on his own. Having advised his parents’friends on their homes since he was nineteen, “starting my own design business felt more like the natural order of things than a leap of faith,” says Smith. Much success followed, with published projects in all the plum shelter magazines and a fan base of boldface names that count on him for his trademark design that effortlessly reflects their personalities and leanings, be it a villa in Malibu or a townhouse in London. “I don’t paint myself out of the picture,” Smith. “Their ideas are filtered through my sensibility. But there’s nothing worse than rooms that are completely unconnected to the people that live in them. I don’t know how to do that kind of work.” Smith instead champions the idea of the hybrid. “It’s really my guiding principle,” he explains. “The strength of the hybrid comes from the tension between elements. Two good ideas together make each one stronger.”
When it came to creating his own home, Smith created a kind of historical fiction on which to base his own dreams. As he explains in his new Rizzoli book, Houses (italics Olga): “I jumped paradigms, moving from the California ranch house to the English dower house. But my house is not a slavish copy of anything I’ve actually seen. It’s my vision of a dower house, something the great English architect Sir Edwins Lutyens might have designed, if he were born in Los Angeles instead of London in 1869.” Smith’s Bel Air home is fashioned from old brick, a slate roof and with Georgian details that give it a sense of time and grace. It took Smith four painstaking years to build it (“I didn’t want to put my clients’ projects on the back burner to focus on my own”), but he moved with methodic stride and now happily accepts any shortcomings the house may have with the calm confidence that experience and natural insight brings, even if it means there’s still not enough closet space. “Building a house is like the ultimate barn-raising,” says Smith. “It’s thrilling and very satisfying.”
In Houses (italics), Smith intimately traces the journey of raising his own home and gives a room-by-room articulation of the philosophy behind his design choices, from fabric selection to paint chip. “Whereas my last book, Elements of Style (italics), was more of a documentation of the various projects I’ve done for clients,” says Smith, “I wanted Houses (italics) to feel more immediate, to be a window onto where I’m at right now.”  His location is indeed a bustling one. In addition to his thriving interiors business, Smith has successful forays in products: his own Jasper furniture line (named after his beloved Labradoodle), an eponymous fabric collection, as well as a fabric line for Cowtan and Tout, three distinct lines of bath fixtures for Kallista, wall-to-wall carpeting for Patterson Flynn and Martin, floor coverings for Mansour, tiles for Ann Sacks, and home fragrances for Agraria. “A large part of everything I design relates to my desire to introduce something to the market I haven’t been able to find elsewhere,” says Smith.
And while he has all the components to create timeless rooms, even he understands that mastery often means letting go and seeing what happens. “The best houses in the world are a little unpredictable,” explains Smith. “They have a life of their own. Objects come in and out. The character evolves. You don’t want to over-process and direct. You want to let the house unfold.”
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What direction is Your Style Compass pointed to?  ( brief to short answers for each of the following):

FASHION  - Ralph Lauren and Andersen Sheppard for Suits, Levi Cords, Clark Desert boots

FABRICS – My lines from Cowtan & Tout and Jasper; and Rose Tarlow and Fortuny

ENTERTAINING – My boyfriend is a media exec; we have a great cook and are lucky to have people over for dinner all the time.  It’s important to practice what you preach.

COLOR – All colors – when used right

TRAVEL – Caribbean in the Winter; Majorca and France in the Summer

GARDENING or FLORAL – I had an amazing time with my landscaper, Christine London, doing my backyard in California.  It’s beautiful and complex with virtually no flowers.

ART or DESIGN
I’m interested in new people.  I love Christina Grajales Gallery. And Ingrid Donat for her bronzes.

BOOK – Francois Hallard’s new book: Marie-Antoinette and the Last Garden at Versailles (italics)

MUSEUM – The Getty, because it’s so close, and they have great food; I love the furniture room.  The Wrightman Room at the MET in New York

RESTAURANT – La Dolce Vita for its Sinatra-clubiness, Le Grenouille, and The Four Seasons in New York for its steady sense of perfectionism.

HOTEL - The Lowell Hotel (NY), Shutters on the Beach (Santa Monica), The Beverly Hills Hotel, Le Maurice (Paris)

MUSIC CD – Adele, “The Cappuccino Mixes from Mallorca,” and “Sketches from Spain” by Miles Davis
GIFT – Great books, new or vintage, Fruit of the Month club
SHOPPE – Joel Chen in LA for amazing anything, Rialto in Palma, Compagnie De La Chine, the J Crew at the Liquor Store Bar.