Wise Man
Or
Design Sage

Paul Wiseman loves a good story. Especially those belonging to other people. He wants to know all about their lifestyle (how they live and where they live, as well as what they think about how and where they live); the kind of house they live in (its size, style, location, even its siting), and he’s terribly curious about whether or not an architect was used (and if so, which one).
Is he a Nosey Parker with a highly refined proboscis particular to choice neighborhoods? An especially well-connected and aesthetically interested gossip columnist or blogger? Or perhaps a psychiatrist pioneering an experimental approach to analysis encompassing color theory and curtain rods? Hardly. Wiseman is one of San Francisco’s most prominent designers, and his interest in his clients’ stories is purely professional. “They are the beginning, the foundation for what we proceed to do; everything comes from their stories,” says Wiseman, noting that it is through listening intently to what his clients say, both explicitly and implicitly, that allows him to understand the essence of what they want – even if what a client wants isn’t immediately apparent to the client. “Sometimes out of fear a client will hold onto a fixed idea, in an effort to control a process that is by its nature creative and therefore fluid,” he adds. “But it’s futile, like trying to control feminine energy with a burka.”
In this sense, the stories are strippers, dancing away camouflage and articles superfluous while providing cogent designer imperatives, such as what the client loves and loathes, desires or detests. As importantly, the narratives also lead to a dialogue, which is essential in building a level of trust that Wiseman finds imperative. “Often a client will have the right idea with the wrong implementation.” For example, he explains, they’ll point to a hideous hue of blue: “But by having taken the time to understand them beyond a superficial level, you can understand more completely what they’re [ITALICS] seeing in that blue, and they’ll then trust you to steer them toward a shade that is more appropriate to the environment and surroundings.”
It’s a complicated composite involving divination and deduction as much as empirical discovery, but that’s how Wiseman rolls. “I’m not interested in imposing a look on a client, or in having a ‘Wiseman signature,’” he says, adding that he always underscores to new clients that he is excited to be working with them rather than executing for them. While that approach might not be for the insecure – those who are faint of heart, those who choose not to see a life and lifestyle potentially as art (or at least artistic), or those unwilling to invest requisite amounts of time and dinero – it’s worked for the likes equity innovator Charles Schwab, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, explorer Steve Fossett, and producer-writer-director Barry Levinson (to identify just a few of Wiseman’s generally publicity shy clients).
It’s also resulted in happy collaborations with renowned architects, such as Ricardo Legorreta, the Mexican master, with whom Wiseman has worked on multiple projects. “The journey,” what he calls the client-designer relationship and process that begins with the story, also keeps Wiseman from ever – “Ever!” – becoming bored. “My clients tend to be fascinating individuals and families, innovators and groundbreakers, as well as nice, learned people at the top of their game,” he says, his only qualifier being that “sometimes they don’t understand just how much of their time is required to get the result they want, how much of themselves they must put into what we’re doing, and how much time can be required to execute some of the ideas.” (One recent example gives a rough idea of the amount of client hours prospectively required, as well as the reward for such an investment:  a series of ten carpets manufactured by V’soske, which Wiseman and his clients designed around a “lost images of history” concept that translates to “Italian parterres, hedges and gardens, Persian and Asian rugs, and books – all things my clients love. Then we played with scale, dimension and color,” he says).
What, then, is Wiseman’s own story, the component he brings to a project’s mosaic? The facts are these: He’s a California-born descendent of a clan whose American arrival dates back to 1740 (when forbearer William Wiseman touched ground in Massachusetts); he grew up on a pear farm between Sacramento and San Francisco; he studied at the University of California, both the Berkeley and Davis campuses; he worked for various furniture companies, antiques dealers and interior designers (such as San Francisco’s Robert Hering and Sue Fisher King) before starting his own business in 1980; he is an effective businessman who twenty years ago employed an innovative organizational model by dividing the Wiseman Group into design principles, senior designers, managers and assistants, each of whom are assigned to different projects at different levels with Wiseman acting as the all-seeing editor-in-chief (“I believe a collective process generally yields the best design,” Wiseman says); he’s a quick wit with a soft touch: “It’s a joke in the office that I never reject an idea; I’ll simply say, ‘Wow! Great! Let’s save that one for another job”; he’s also Kermit the Frog green, “There are high quality green alternatives for everything these days, finishes, wood, furniture, lighting. It’s not perfect, not yet, but it’s fast improving,” he says, adding that his mantra to himself and to clients is “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
As compelling are the rich threads with which Wiseman has chosen to weave his story. Those include yarns and histories gleaned from his collection of over 8,000 books, including first editions from the likes of Somerset Maugham, auction catalogues and designers’ and architects’ monographs, most kept in his favorite room, the library of a Mill Valley “summer” house built in 1880, which he shares with his partner of 22 years and where, he explains, “I read the words of giants surrounded by giant 200-foot redwoods.” Collections of minerals; paintings by Bay Area artists; porcelain, Majolica and pottery; and Japanese print erotica, some pieces dating to the 1600s, are also edifying passions.
Then there’s travel, frequent and far-flung, which began with a post high school, three-month European tour in which he clocked over 12,000 car miles in England, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria; continued during college when Wiseman spent his junior year in Australia at the University of Tasmania followed by a six-month pan-Asian odyssey; and continue to this day, “Over three decades later!” says the 56-year-old [he turns 56 in July].
Stories complex, stories simple. Both work for Wiseman, the requirements only being they be collaborative, unique, meaningful, and therefore, beautiful.