March 31, 2024On her walk-through of a house in a suburb of Washington, D.C., that prospective clients had recently purchased, Zoë Feldman didn’t mince words when discussing its interiors with the new homeowners: There was the ill-conceived layout, the terrible drop-down tray ceiling, the inexplicable Lucite staircase and the hideous light in the dining room.
As she was the only candidate who readily acknowledged how ugly everything was, the clients, who kept silent but felt the same, decided to hire her on the spot.
Why buy a house with so many flaws? Because, in addition to its convenient location and verdant surroundings, it offered abundant space, a precious commodity for the clients, a young couple who, with their two school-age children, had previously called a cramped apartment in Brooklyn home.
Still, moving from one city to the suburbs of another was hard for this pair. When they first met, they were globe-trotters, and they hiked Mount Kilimanjaro on one of their first dates.
“They wanted a home that was eclectic and fun,” says Feldman, “where they could showcase all the art and objects from their travels. They kept wondering, ‘How do we stay cool and put all our coolness into this place?’ And that became our mission.”
Playful urbanity comes naturally to Feldman, a member of the just-announced 1stDibs 50 class of 2024 whose eponymous firm is based in D.C. She attributes the ease and wit with which she mixes and matches different decorative eras and styles to her childhood immersion in forward-thinking aesthetics.
She grew up in a family of art and design collectors in a mid-century-modern house in Siesta Key, off the coast of Sarasota, Florida, a community renowned for its tropical modernist architecture. After graduating from Manhattan’s Parsons School of Design, Feldman got a job in New York working in the studio of renowned interiors talent Alexa Hampton. There, she developed an appreciation of the layered richness and versatility of traditional decor. Today, she describes her own approach as “modernized classicism.”
Chief among Feldman’s recommendations to remedy the many ills of this modern version of an Arts and Crafts house was softening its hard lines. She eliminated as much drywall as possible, by covering it with decorative plastering, millwork and wallpaper.
As the couple were keen to inject some “Brooklyn” into their home, she proposed lining the powder room with Flavor Paper’s Brooklyn toile, originally commissioned by Beastie Boy Mike D, a New York hipster if ever there was one. “It was the first thing they decided on using,” Feldman says.
Soon, they had selected a fresh take on a hand-painted chinoiserie mural for their daughter’s room and an alluring wallpaper of recumbent coquettes for the back wall of the guest bedroom, which doubles as the wife’s study.
In their own bedroom, the wall behind the bed is paneled in walnut, which warms the space and pulls the eye away from the lamentable tray ceiling. It also serves as a handsome backdrop to a vintage Korhogo cloth, made by the Senufo people of the Ivory Coast, hanging above the bed, a reminder of the husband’s sojourn in Africa when he was in the armed services. Feldman put this in conversation with a Tibetan tiger-patterned fabric on the upholstered headboard, a reference to East Asia, another far-flung locale where he once knocked about.
The first major piece of furniture the couple chose for the house was Frédéric Pellenq’s Camarat L sofa for the living room. “They fell in love with its curvy back and bold blue upholstery,” says Feldman, who also used Pellenq’s fanciful geometric hardware for the walnut built-ins.
The living room is located next to the entry and opposite the dining room, where 10 of Juliana Lima Vasconcellos’s jaunty Giraffe chairs are arranged around a custom oval walnut table. “We always make certain that the number of people seated at dinner can be comfortably entertained in the living room,” notes Feldman, adding “We achieved this through occasional seating, which also helped create a warmer, more layered space.”
Several of the stools, ottomans and armchairs selected were discovered on 1stDibs, including the wood turner’s chair from Casamidy. “I’d seen something similar while gathering inspiration,” Feldman says, “and knew it would give the room a sense of heritage, while softening the other modern shapes and features.”
Waggish details like the ball feet on the sheepskin ottoman, another 1stDibs find, recur throughout the house. Iron railings on the new staircase, for example, sport globular feet, while three spherical Flowerpot lamps, designed by Verner Panton in 1968, provide illumination overhead. “These little moments were very important to us,” says Feldman, “and made it clear that we were designing a really interesting space.”
When furnishing the house, Feldman was mindful of scale. “It’s important with big homes,” she explains. For the commodious family room, she picked big, showstopping pieces, like the curvy plaster coffee table with creature-like feet, custom designed by a local maker. All the furniture is low to the ground because, she says, it gives the room “a more modern look.”
To bring the woodsy views in from the outside, she flanked the windows with plants in oversize pots. Pale, voluminous curtains soften and quiet the space.
Brooklynites are known for an appreciation of natural materials and craft in all its forms. So, Feldman filled the house with organically shaped, handmade wood furniture. She also made texture a focus in the rooms. In the kitchen, for instance, the walnut cabinets feature sand-cast bronze pulls; the counters are a pebbly leathered quartzite with a hand-ribbed profile; and the walls are covered in either handmade Moroccan zellige tiles or tadelakt, a Moroccan plaster.
“The clients asked for splashes of color,” says Feldman. “We wanted to figure out a way to do it that wouldn’t feel traditional. Which is why we pulled a lot of the color off the walls, saturating instead with the art and funky furniture. When we did add color, like the Yves Klein blue in the butler’s pantry, we made it a supersaturated moment, very Pop-y in feeling.”
The result? An interior that is as cool and individual as this one-of-a-kind couple. Mission accomplished.
