For the past few years Workstead design studio founders Robert Highsmith and his wife and partner Stefanie Brechbuehler have been working between Charleston South...
Photography by Matthew Williams, courtesy of Workstead.
...Carolina and Brooklyn New York one of their more involved projects was the Dewberry Hotel a restoration of the Mendel Rivers Federal Building in Charleston
Our latest project the Workstead House is the residential evolution of that concept In partnership with a New York City based investor the couple meticulously restored and reimagined the three story 5...
...600 square foot Italianate Victorian row house featuring work from local craftspeople and companies such as Charleston based Urban Electric Co The end result is all sensory experience of Southern modernism Robert says
The exterior trim is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Pitch Black.
Stefanie Brechbuehler and Robert Highsmith met at Rhode Island School of Design and founded Workstead in 2009 with their classmate Ryan Mahoney, who now heads up the Brooklyn studio (Stefanie and Robert work between Charleston and New York).
On the plus side, there were lots of salvageable materials—although we had to do quite a bit of restoration—including the original rope trim around the doorways, decorative corbels, and little transom windows above some of the doors.
The Leather Mid Credenza and the Leather Round Mirror are from BDDW in NYC.
In the living room, a pair of Moreno Chairs and a Moreno Sofa, both from Lawson-Fenning, are upholstered in Holland & Sherry velvet.
“The sideboard, which we found at a local Charleston antiques store, is a weird Art Deco/Mission mashup; it doesn’t know what it wants to be, which is why we love it,” Robert says.
The silver tea set and other pieces are from Croghan’s Jewel Box in Charleston; this kind of silver is a very Southern thing.
In the living room, lighting by Workstead includes a Signal Wall Sconce and a Signal Globe pendant. Many of the pieces throughout the project are vintage, including the marble-topped side table positioned between the Lawson-Fenning chairs.
In the dining room, a custom built-in glass vitrine, modeled after an English breakfront cabinet, affords a view into the kitchen.
“We thought of the kitchen as a series of elements,” Robert says.
A Lacanche range is tucked into a marble-tiled niche.
The screened-in porch opens to the rear of the house and is outfitted with a vintage rattan porch furniture set; the walls are Clunch by Farrow & Ball.
A Scoop Sconce from Urban Electric with a gold cinch pleat shade illuminates the second-floor landing (the fixture is also available with a more modern scoop shade).
Glimpsed through the doorway on the second-floor landing is a low-key sitting room.
A Workstead Lodge Pendant hangs above a vintage desk in the second-floor study; the Campaign Folding Chair is from BDDW.
In the master bedroom, the bed is sited in front of a gilded folding screen found in a Savannah antiques shop; “It reflects light in an otherwise dark space,” Robert says.
The seascape photo is by Charleston-based photographer Jeff Holt.
In the master bedroom, a Helios Table Lamp by Workstead sits atop a vintage Robsjohn-Gibbings dresser.
The master bath is painted in Studio Green from Farrow & Ball.
“Reflected in the custom mirror is a painting by Charleston artist Tim Hussey,” Robert says.