March 10, 2024Famed for its painted lady Victorian residences, San Francisco is also home — in its Noe Valley neighborhood — to an enclave of early-20th-century Edwardian architecture. “The style is a simplified version of Victorian, ornate but a little more stripped down,” says Christine Lin, founder of the San Francisco design studio Form + Field, who recently reimagined the interiors of a classic Edwardian here.
The nearly 3,000-square-foot house was replete with period details. It had 10-foot-high ceilings, bay windows, crown moldings, decorative plaster and panels of Lincrusta, a wallcovering, made of linseed-oil gel and wood flour deeply embossed by patterned rollers, that was popular in the late 19th century. In addition, it had charming and intimate rooms, including a library with an original fireplace and pocket doors.
“Smaller spaces like the library feel more enveloping, so they lend themselves to a more cozy, layered and textured home,” says Lin, who imbued the larger family and entertaining spaces with a similar sense of intimacy.
The designer is known for clean-lined contemporary interiors and was thrilled that the clients — a doctor and a tech exec with two elementary-school-age children and a golden retriever — were intent on honoring the century-old architecture.
“They also wanted to address sustainability,” Lin adds. “They appreciate the reuse of items as well as the character of vintage furniture, so naturally we sourced from 1stDibs.”
Lin, who started Form + Field in 2016, has a decided preference for mid-20th-century classics. “What I love about the Tobia and Afra Scarpa dining chairs I have in my own home is the patina,” she explains. “And when people say, ‘What? You let your three-year-old kid sit on a highly collectible piece of design?’ I say, ‘Yes, otherwise why would I have it?’ Beautiful furniture is meant to be used.”
Born and raised in Delaware, Lin became fascinated with art and design while watching television growing up. “I was obsessed with Antiques Roadshow,” she recalls.
She honed her eye and developed an appreciation for iconic architect-designed furniture, such as Le Corbusier’s LC 1 chair, while earning bachelor degrees in architecture and mechanical engineering at MIT. Her academic training informed her approach to designing this Edwardian home, which she worked on with Form + Field senior designer Rebecca Esh and the rest of the firm’s team.
“You must pay attention to the window shapes, the moldings, what works with the proportions and detailing and how you can modernize it all to feel cohesive without diminishing the architecture,” she says.
She applied that design philosophy throughout the house, starting in the main entry. There, the designers used a mid-century Brazilian bench and a flat-weave Swedish rug to play up the rectilinear geometry of the paneled doors and walls and the staircase’s fluted balusters.
“Swedish rugs have simple, timeless patterns,” Lin observes. “And they function so well in a house with kids and a dog.”
The team placed a sleek contemporary Allied Maker light in a plaster medallion on the entryway ceiling. “A chandelier would be overpowering,” she explains. “The simplicity of the light contrasted against the plaster work catches your attention and makes each look more distinctive.”
Lin and her designers used a cozy palette of wood tones and subdued blues to create a family room in a space adjacent to the entryway that already sported a turn-of-the-20th-century fireplace and a bay of windows framed by neoclassical moldings. By adding custom bookcases, a built-in wraparound mohair sofa, a carpet cut to frame the hearth, a Nickey Kehoe ottoman and a Knoll tripod side table, the designer deftly integrated modern comfort into the historical setting.
The living and dining rooms seamlessly mix pedigreed mid-century designs with contemporary pieces. The clients’ prized possession — a burl-wood tuxedo sofa by Milo Baughman reupholstered in mohair — anchors the living room. Furnishings there also include pale blue ottomans from Lawson-Fenning and another Swedish rug, this one grid patterned. Adding circular shapes to the design scheme, a silk pendant light reminiscent of George Nelson’s Saucer lamp floats above a 21st-century Brazilian coffee table with a slatted wood base. That piece echoes the wicker shade of a 1970s Uno and Östen Kristiansson lamp, which stands beside 1960s Italian nesting tables found on 1stDibs.
The dining room also combines vintage finds with new designs that have an organic modern aesthetic: A 1970s Carlo Scarpa Scuderia sideboard and 1960s Italian chairs by Silvio Coppola surround a dining table that Fabio Fantolino recently created for Gebrüder Thonet, all illuminated by a contemporary chandelier from Ravenhill Studio.
Because the dining area “sits in the middle of the house, between the entry and the kitchen and open to the living room, it needed to feel informal and functional,” says Lin. “The table has an orange laminate top, so the kids can do their homework on it.”
The gut-renovated off-white, walnut and limestone kitchen features an island Lin’ and her team designed with storage on one end and a bronze top. “The client loves patina,” she explains, “and bronze is a living material that ages as you use it.”
For a powder room she describes as “a windowless little closet,” the designers selected dark gray-blue paint to coordinate with handcrafted zellige tile trimmed with brass and a House of Hackney floral wallpaper.
While the upstairs bathroom, shared by the entire family, was redesigned to maximize functionality, the parents’ bedroom is a spacious oasis. Now, a wingback upholstered bed with integrated nightstands by Luca Nichetto for De La Espada sits tucked into a nook created by the space’s steep ceiling vaults. A lowboy dresser by California mid-century modernist Stanley Young stands against the opposite wall.
By the window, a Leta chaise, designed in 2015 by Pinch and covered in a fabric originally designed in 1915 by William Turner, keeps company with a 1940s French bobbin-leg side table in the style of Charles Dudouyt.
“The clients wanted warm and homey, so it’s all about creating a composition where the color, the materials and the periods and styles of the furniture and fabrics all tie together,” Lin concludes. “In an older house, it’s important to respect the feeling that the architecture gives you, but there should also be a sense of evolution to decorate it in a modern way.”
