Joan McNamara's Industrial Chic Loft in LA - Remodelista
Joan has lived in an industrial chic loft a couple of blocks from Joan’s on Third for nine years (the ultimate walk-to-work situation). Her early working years in New York combined her two passions: design and cooking. Photography by Laure Joliet for Remodelista. Joan, always clad in black, at home in her loft. The marble-topped kitchen island. Joan prefers a neutral palette of white walls, gray concrete floor, and warm dark wood tones. Joan counts a white farmhouse sink as one of her kitchen essentials–this one is a Kohler Gilford. Other crucial elements are her mother’s wooden spoons, an omelette pan, and an original design Kitchen Aid mixer in white. A row of copper pans lined up on a GE Monogram stove that came with the loft (industrial Wolf ranges are what she has at her store). A drawer full of white ramekins used for cooking sessions with friends. We’re a group of professional chefs who get together about once a month to cook together and chat and drink wine.” Hand-carved wooden spoons, passed down from her mother. The dining table is from Bourgeois Boheme in LA and Joan believes it was originally a wine maker’s table. The chandelier above the dining table came from a trip to the UK–“I bought three there for the price of one here,” she tells us. Joan collects cows and sheep, a love born from visiting farms. An old baker’s trolley is used for storing part of Joan’s vast cookbook collection. A garage door opens to a balcony and fills the loft with light. Above L: Next to the dining table, Joan stores tableware in an antique sideboard that she topped with a marble counter. Joan had legs added to it: “As was, it looked like part of a kitchen cabinet.” It’s filled with silver that Joan has collected over the years and inherited from her mother. A drawer full of silverware in the credenza. Joan’s cookbook collection continues in her home office. A marble-topped candy making table stands opposite the credenza in the foyer. An Eames lounge chair and Noguchi lamp in a corner of the bedroom. The balcony has a French bistro table and folding chairs. For another LA House Call, see our post on the home of Eccola owner Kathleen White Almanza.