Whitney Stewart's Eye
A Designer's Vision at Home

By Annie Groer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 30, 2007

Interior designer Whitney Stewart is a champion of cascading draperies, puddled just so on the floor. She routinely presents clients with a selection of luxe carpets, textiles and wallpaper, and has been known to advise them to paint their walls, and even their floors, vivid red, blue, yellow or green.

But her own home in Northwest Washington reflects very little of that.

The space is a study in neutral understatement: high beamed ceilings and off-white walls (she tried five shades before choosing Benjamin Moore's Navajo White), rich brown painted floors and almost-black kitchen cabinetry. Several dramatic windows are bare; others wear only simple shutters or shades -- there's not a drapery swag in sight.

The house does not proclaim a "Whitney Stewart look" any more than the colorful French country decor of her last home in Bethesda, she contends. Her work blends clients' needs and preferences with her eye and instinct, honed over 30 years. A native Californian, she ran her late mother's design studio in Los Angeles in the 1970s, then set up shop in Paris. She has been in Washington since 1996.

This house on the edge of Rock Creek Park represents another chapter of her life and career. With three grown children living elsewhere, she was ready to simplify, downsize (many favorite possessions were put in storage) and create an "adult" environment where she could live, work and entertain.

She planned meticulously before gutting, expanding and totally transforming a "boring" 1950 split-level rambler she bought four years ago, working with architect Jim Wilner and contractor Simon Ley. They blew out the ceilings and demolished most of the walls to create a single soaring 960-square-foot public space.

"It's not that big, but it looks big. If you can't go wide or long, go up," says Stewart, eyeing the floating central staircase that leads to the master suite on the new second story. Another set of steps descends to the lower-level studio that was once a garage.

She describes her vision for the open main floor as quadrants: four separate but seamless areas for seating, dining and cooking, plus a wall of shelves that serves as a library.

It took nine months to create a home that reflects the guiding principles behind Stewart's personal and professional style.

Chief among these principles is what she refers to as the all-important "mix": "Period and modern. This or that texture. Dark or light colors," she says. "This is a concept that takes confidence and an educated eye to create."

It is why she went to the trouble to fit a richly weathered wooden door into an expanse of pristine white wall (it conceals the sound system). It is why a tall Venetian mirror (so what if it's missing a few glass panels?) looms over a lithe iron floor lamp. It is why a pair of sober 18th-century chairs are iced, like a cookie, in chocolate and vanilla upholstery. (They look swell near a zebra hide on the floor).

She also has strong opinions about scale: "Bigger is usually better. Little dinky stuff doesn't cut it." Note the eight-foot-tall windows in the kitchen and master bath, the supersize sofa pillows ("Normal pillows are 18 inches square; these are 26 inches") and the commanding portrait of Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud she snagged for a great price at auction in France.

Several steps and three centuries away from the imperious Sun King is a confidently current dining area. Fearing that a wooden table would weigh down the space, Stewart pulled a pair of classical pedestals from storage, topped them with a slab of glass and added eight transparent polycarbonate "Louis Ghost" armchairs by Philippe Starck ($362 each). The result is almost ethereal.

Price is also part of her mix.

"Great design is not always the most expensive. It can be not expensive at all," says Stewart, who camouflaged $59 white laminate Ikea bookcases with custom millwork, painted five miniature flowerpots white and lined them up on the mantel, and created a side table by setting an inexpensive rattan tray over a French garden urn. In the small sunroom that opens off the ruling quadrant, she brought in light with stationary French doors because "they are cheaper than windows that open and close."

Even now she is a bit surprised by how well it all turned out. "I intended to buy it and flip it," Stewart says. "And then when I was finished, I fell in love with it."

To learn more about Whitney Stewart designs, see her website.