Untitled - Leverone Design

“I love the warmth of
orange,” says designer
Matthew Leverone, who
covered the living room sofa
in a Menlo Park, California,
house in Sanderson’s
Liffey. A lively rug by J. D.
Staron offsets the simplicity
of Wisteria’s coffee table.
Backs of custom wing
chairs covered in Zoe by
Raoul Textiles. Opposite:
Portieres in Bansuri lined
in Barnegat, both from
Kravet, add drama to the
dining room. For exotic
glamour, chairbacks are
covered in Martyn Lawrence Bullard’s Mamounia.
Inside and out, sunny
yellow, juicy orange, and sky blue evoke
the perfect California day
Open Door Policy
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Interior design by M att h e w L e v er o n e Interview by L isa C r eg a n Photographs by L isa R o m er ei n
Perpetually per fect
weather makes for an interesting
design dilemma. How do you decorate inside when everyone wants to
be outside?
Matthew Leverone: The weather is
beyond perfect south of San Francisco. It’s sunny and in the 70s every
single day—doors are flung open, people wander straight out to the patio. I
tried to reflect that outdoorsy lifestyle
and happy California sunshine with
lots of clear color—bright orange and
yellow with sky blues. There are no
gray days here, inside or out.
These rooms feel almost like Pop Art.
The colors are so vivid and crisp.
Crisp is such a good word for my projects. I don’t like muddiness. This is
a navel orange, and the blues are not
navy or dark. And all the white mixed
in keeps things clean and fresh. But
here’s something interesting: My
client hates green. She’s a lovely,
hardworking businesswoman, a
single mom with 8- and 10-year-old
boys, and easygoing—except when it
comes to green!
So you made orange your focal point?
The whole house seems to flow straight
from this fabulous living room sofa.
That color came out of the rug, with
its little orange accent. When I suggested it, my client asked, ‘Have you
ever done an orange sofa?’ And I had
to admit I hadn’t, which made her a
little nervous. But now she’s so happy
she went for it. I kept the entry subtle, so you walk in to softness, and
then pow, you’re hit with orange in
the living room. Then we started
pulling that pure tangerine color all
around the house as the thread to tie
the rooms together.
How did you make such high-pitched
ceilings feel so intimate?
I began my career at an architecture
firm, and those lessons stuck with
me. This is a typical California midcentury ranch house, probably added
onto in the 1980s. The master bedroom was sponge painted—remember sponge painting? The whole
house was like that, screaming for
an update. But we weren’t doing a gut
redo; we were on a budget. The preL isa C r e g a n :
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vious owners had painted the rafters white to make them disappear
into the white ceiling. We repainted
them gray and then painted the support joists a darker gray to look like
steel. It pays tribute to the original
architecture—actually calling it out.
We were not afraid of the midcentury
bones here.
It feels like this dining room might have
once been an open-air porch.
Yes, and now it’s this super-skinny
room with a brick floor—difficult!
We had to have a narrow table custom made for it. Luckily, when the
sliding glass doors are open, it
doesn’t feel so cramped. I wanted
to create a sense of transition from
the living room, so I added curtains
and suggested a bench, because kids
love benches. Plus, I thought a bench
tucked under a table would look less
chaotic from the living room. And I
decided to do only the backs of the
chairs in pattern—vinyl-coated to
protect against sticky fingers. This
way, the pattern stands out as an
accent that you can’t help but notice.
The family
room is the boys’
hangout, so
Leverone chose
blue for the sofa in
Jane Churchill’s
Chester. Cushions
on the Abacus
Spool chair from
Mecox Gardens
are covered in
Manuel Canovas’s
Ales. Opposite:
“To give the
kitchen a facelift without
breaking the
bank,” Leverone
says, the rafters
were painted
in Benjamin Moore
Aura in Plymouth
Rock, with dark
accents to match
the repainted
cabinetry. Orange
reappears in
Kravet’s Duncan
on Hickory Chair
stools. Pendant
lights, Design
Within Reach.
Above:
This may be a standard-issue ranch
house, but it’s got a whiff of the exotic.
My client is drawn to shapes that
ma ke you thin k of places li ke
Morocco, and it worked for me
because I lean toward strong, graphic
patterns. If I’m going to use a pattern, it’s going to be big. No small
furniture either—I prefer big, bold
shapes, like the living room lounge
chairs. I consider myself a modernist who straddles the traditional.
Just what is a tradition-​s traddling
modernist?
I like things that are classic but also
linear. You can see it in the credenza
I had made for the entry, with its
scooped-out lines in the doors, and
the armoire in the master bedroom,
where the white drawers feel like
stripes against the oak. And when
my client fell in love with this strong
periwinkle tile for the boys’ bathroom, I thought to match its intensity with stripes. The room is so wonderfully energetic, just like her boys.
And we painted the bedroom walls
blue, so everything is in harmony.
That’s quite a daring approach in the
kitchen, painting the cabinets black.
To be honest, I wanted desperately to
redo the kitchen. It had white cabinets and this pinkish-gray granite and a terra-cotta floor. But that
wasn’t in the budget, so I said, ‘Let’s
just paint it out with black.’ The dark
paint picks up the black specks in the
granite, so it blends. We also pulled
the terra-cotta color onto the barstools. Rather than fight the existing
elements, we worked with the counters and floor to help them disappear.
And you can stroll right from the
kitchen to this very inviting patio.
The house is U-shape, and nearly
every room looks over the patio. So I
used the same colors from inside—
there are no boundaries. The daybed
is from a catalog, but we made it special with custom pillows. She can lie
down and read a magazine when she’s
alone, and it’s a relaxed spot for entertaining. At night, she lights the hanging lanterns. They look so friendly,
like decorative twinkling stars.
Produced by D ore t ta Sperdu to
1. An
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armchair in Robert
Allen’s Astamor adds a
vivacious contrast to the
master bedroom’s neutral
headboard, in Pindler &
Pindler’s Barstow leatherette. ​2. A painting by Peter
Combe above the dining
room buffet was commissioned to reflect the house’s
colors. ​3. The bench by the
front door is a welcoming
touch. ​4. Living room walls
are painted Benjamin Moore
Aura in Barely Beige. “It has a
bit of red in it, which works
well with orange,” Leverone
says. “We used it in all the
communal rooms.” Pillows in
Jim Thompson’s Chana are
set against Colefax &
Fowler’s Farne on the interior
of the wing chairs. ​5. On
the patio, the slate-blue
tones of Restoration
Hardware’s Carmel daybed,
Pottery Barn’s Frog Rain
drum side tables, and Brown
Jordan’s Venetian chairs echo
the house’s siding. Pillows in
Schumacher’s Sunglass Print
and Duralee’s Pavilion. 6
​ . In the entry, Hickory Chair’s
Alexandra chair is energized
with Duralee’s Huntington
Stripe. Opposite: Osborne & Little’s Carnaby wallpaper
paired with Pratt & Larson
tile from Artistic Tile
animates the boys’ bath.
The vanity was stained to
match Restoration Hardware’s
Hutton medicine cabinets.
Coverlets and bunk beds
from Pottery Barn Kids.
Bedroom walls in Benjamin
Moore Aura in Steel Blue.
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In the master bedroom,
a much-loved duvet cover
already owned by the
client was Leverone’s
jumping-off point. He
pulled the soft, silvery
blue out of its pattern
for the walls, in Benjamin
Moore’s Aura in Silver
Mist, and used a
complementary fabric,
Angle Lane from
Robert Allen, for curtains
and shades. John
Robshaw’s Roti pillow
looks playful atop a chair
in Pindler & Pindler’s
Ghent. For more details,
see Resources
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