Starting over is rarely easy. Exciting, maybe, but rarely easy. And when driven by disaster, rising like a phoenix takes some doing. But when vintners Stephen Crétier and Stephany Maillery of Napa’s Roy Estate saw their home consumed by one of California’s all-too-frequent fires, they counted their blessings (their vines survived) and put their minds to rebuilding.
Turning to Taylor Lombardo Architects and the McCaffrey Design Group, the couple went big, building an expansive residence overlooking acres of vines and the mountain ranges rising in the distance. “In addition to maximizing the incredible views, the architects artfully wove a blend of traditional details into a mostly modern building, which feels amazingly cohesive,” says designer Katie McCaffrey, who was brought on board once construction was well underway.
The clients, notes McCaffrey, “have a modern sensibility, but also have a passion for history and the French tradition,” and were looking for interiors that were “more fetching than fussy.” To honor that sensibility, she deployed an array of curated and custom-made furniture and accessories that take a cue from the warm wood found throughout the home. Leather, unglazed ceramics and plaster-like wall finishes create a rich visual texture. In the impressively scaled great room, with its steeply pitched beamed ceiling and a towering wall of windows, McCaffrey gathered a group of club chairs around a Design Kollective Breuer slab coffee table. In the dining room, meals are served at an enormous wood table designed by New Hampshire-based Tod Von Mertens, paired with sixteen leather chairs from Connecticut’s Richard Wrightman Design.
The private spaces in the home received equally considered attention. The primary bedroom is dominated by a handcrafted wooden wall made of linear elements arranged in a dynamic geometric pattern with floating night tables incorporated into the composition. The dressing features a vanity set with a custom- made stool of ebonized wood and fur.
“Throughout the home,” says McCaffrey, “the views played a huge element in all aspects of the main spaces and we did not want to compete with them on the interiors. Our goal was to seamlessly blend what our eyes could see outside with the materials we felt inside. We wanted emphasis on conveying natural luxury through materials – leather, alpaca, mohair, natural fibers and rich woods – in hues referencing the dried grasses on the hills or the deep oak of wine barrels. It all has a wonderful, sophisticated ease to it, where nothing screams for attention.” Cheers to that.
Photography by Adrián Gregorutti.…