House Call: An Exercise in Order with Architect Barbara Chambers - Remodelista
Photography by Andres Gonzalez for Remodelista. “I don’t think there’s been anybody in my house who hasn’t said, ‘Sign me up’ after ten minutes,” architect Barbara Chambers says, referring to her minimal, almost extreme tidiness. The front door is a distressed oak Dutch door with an inset cutout window. On warm days, Barbara leaves the top half wide open. Barbara designed the living room furniture herself and had it fabricated by UK company George Smith, which added her chaise design to its collection and named it the Barbara Bench. “My kitchen is very minimalist; the ‘stuff’ is stored around the corner,” said Barbara. The countertop is statuary marble and the kitchen faucet is from Lefroy Brooks. To Barbara, the Viking range is the centerpiece of the room. When shown a simple kitchen on paper, Barbara reports, clients often think it’s not big enough. A side view of the kitchen shows two built-in, chest-height cabinets flanking a staircase landing. Barbara tucked the refrigerator and the trash and recycling bins into a walk-in pantry around the corner. A rolling ladder in the pantry leads to an apartment unit above the garage. The daily essentials—including tea and coffee service—are located closest to the kitchen. Barbara decants her dry goods into glass jars. Barbara stores clear plastic bags from the bulk aisle in a white ceramic bowl. “When clients tell me they need storage space for their eight sets of China, I tell them we’re getting rid of seven.” Mirroring the pantry, on the other side of the kitchen, is a mudroom entrance with laundry. “Every house needs this space,” said Barbara: “The entry the family uses ninety percent of the time, where everyone can hang coats and take their shoes off.” Hanging pegs installed in the wood trim hold coats and dog leashes, and storage cabinets are recessed into the paneling to look like part of the wall. “The guts of the house are here,” said Barbara, including the washer/dryer and “huge” cabinets with extra storage and pantry space. Barbara uses wall paneling in all the mudrooms she designs: “These rooms get a lot of use and get beat up easily,” she said. Barbara sited the master bedroom upstairs, at the back of the property where it’s quietest. A chaise sits opposite the bed, flanked by two doors leading to a white-painted deck. The vanity countertop in the master bathroom is statuary marble. The bathroom floor tile is half-inch Carrara marble, and the shower fixture is also from Lefroy Brooks. About a year after the house was complete, Barbara designed a backyard studio for her husband, architect and painter Guy Chambers. To fill out the studio—in case Barbara and Guy want to rent it out as a separate residence—Barbara designed a breezeway kitchenette between the studio and house, which she currently uses as a potting and flower cutting station. The front gate and garden hints at the axial relationship between the landscape and the house. See a full tour of Barbara’s garden on Gardenista in Architect Visit: Barbara Chambers at Home in Mill Valley.