One of our favorite resources for design inspiration comes from Luxe. Magazine. They feature interiors and designs worthy of an ‘ooh’ and ‘awe’. This week, they featured a Scottsdale Desert Home with contemporary, moody glamour. If this type of contemporary, moody glamour speaks to you, contact Excel Marketing. We help professional designers, architects, builders, and homeowners find the bold, luxurious fixtures that accentuate modern, contemporary homes. We work directly with manufacturers so you will have access to all the latest products and designs available on the market. We also work with suppliers and can refer you to a design store in your area.
In the meantime, enjoy a summary of the Arizona home featured in Luxe.
A Scottsdale Desert Home Features Moody Glamour
Design Contrasts
The desert is a place of wild mood swings and intense contrasts—temperatures ranging from scalding at high noon to woolen-sweater weather by twilight; bright blue skies giving way to vivid sunsets at dusk; bone-dry landscapes suddenly made lush from downpours in minutes. Like its setting, this Scottsdale home in the private community of Desert Mountain revels in the tension arising from the juxtaposition of opposites.
That starts with the homeowners, says interior designer John G. Martin, who decorated the house with his partner, David P. Turner. Martin met the couple, who spend half the year in Chicago, in 2008 when they asked him to tweak the interiors of a previous home they owned in the same community. “The house was very commercial and very blank,” he recalls. “These clients are totally the opposite. They are very personable.”
House Details
- Style: Contemporary
- Photography: Jeff Zaruba
- Interior Design: DAVID P. TURNER AND JOHN G. MARTIN, TURNER MARTIN DESIGN
- Landscape Architecture: JOHN G. MARTIN, TURNER MARTIN DESIGN, AND ERVIN BOLLINGER, ERVIN’S SONS LANDSCAPE COMPANY
Evolving Tastes
That project kicked off a professional and personal relationship that has transformed the retired couple’s aesthetic over the ensuing nine years. “Our tastes have evolved,” the husband says. “Nowadays we like a cleaner modern look, but we also like things to be warm.” Their current home is prime evidence of that evolution. Originally designed by architect Linc Taylor of Linc Taylor Design, the residence is a resolutely modernist structure of stacked flagstone and expansive walls of glass framed in blackened steel. After seeing it, “we bought it the very next day,” the husband says.
Still, alterations were necessary. “My least favorite space was the part that was most important to me: the kitchen,” recalls the husband, who loves to cook. “I was lukewarm about it.” In response, the designers reworked the prominent pantry, which was initially enclosed by a nondescript sheetrock wall. Martin covered the wall with laminate that resembles Shou Sugi Ban, a cedar Japanese artisans have traditionally preserved by charring it black. “It created this very dramatic wood-like presence,” he says. Now, the space complements the house’s other materials. “The black in this environment was drawn from the blackened-steel window frames,” Martin explains. The laminate serves another purpose: In one simple gesture, “the kitchen, with no appliance changes, became unified with the great room,” he says. The designers continued the laminate into the adjacent dry bar, the entrance to the master bedroom and the opposite end of the hallway, where they added a mirror to create the illusion the hallway continues on.
How it All Ties Together
The dusky, inky shade found throughout the decor helps tie the look together. Amid the mix of paintings and photographs, ethnic artifacts speak both to the monochromatic palette and the rough-hewn character of the flagstone. A hollowed-out palm tree stump near the entry, chunky Dogon ladders in the open living-dining area and Balinese doors hung on a guest room wall mimic minimalist sculptures. Set against streamlined modern furniture, these rustic pieces with organic shapes and finishes create another high contrast in the house.
Source:
Arango, Jorge S. “A Scottsdale Desert Home Features Moody Glamour.” Luxe Interiors + Design, luxesource.com/features/article/a-scottsdale-desert-home-features-moody-glamour.
