Reviving Mid-Century Lighting Designs with Devilish Details

Take a Deep Dive into This Contemporary Kitchen by Bilotta Kitchen & Home and Dufner Heighes

Some house-hunters have a wine cellar or infinity-edge pool at the top of their lust list; others covet a four-car garage or a double-sided fireplace. Erica Holborn dreamt of one day owning a house with a butler’s pantry. The Sandow Design Group CEO finally got her wish two years ago when she and her husband, Andrew, purchased a historic property in Pelham, New York, with a generously sized scullery tucked between the kitchen, dining room, and entry hall. So when the couple embarked on a renovation of the kitchen proper, they naturally intended to keep the pantry separate. 

But as the Holborns’s interior designers, Daniel Heighes Wismer and Greg Dufner of Dufner Heighes, started hashing out the new scheme with cabinetry specialist Bilotta Kitchen & Home, it quickly become apparent that something had to give. “We were working on a plan maintaining the original footprint,” Heighes Wismer explains. “But the main kitchen space had an unusual and problematic shape and was quite small; Andrew cooks a lot and felt that it just was too snug.” Plus, the designer adds, the center island was underscaled and awkward—conducive neither to cooking nor eating. “It only sat two people and was weirdly square.” The configuration just wasn’t proving functional for heavy-duty family use. 

Collaborator Sarah Witkin of Bilotta Architecture suggested rethinking the option of tearing down the structural wall between the butler’s pantry and kitchen and combining the two zones. Such a move would not only open up the floor plan, freeing up enough square footage to design around how the family really lives, but it would also maximize natural light, since the contemporary kitchen would gain one more window in the process. Although merging the spaces would certainly entail a more comprehensive renovation—new structural steel, rerouting plumbing and electrical, etc.—the team ultimately decided it made the most sense. “My dream has always been to have a butler’s pantry,” says Holborn, “and then I finally get one—and go, ‘tear it out!’” Luckily, she and her family gained much in the process. Here’s how the space came together—and a close-up of its key features.

custom cabinetry ties together old and new

Cabinets were specified in Dove White paint, which disguises the classical detailing somewhat to assert a more modern vibe. That same reasoning informed the choice of square-top trim (rather than crown molding) along the ceiling. “That way, it doesn’t distract from the more classical original woodwork of the door frames,” Bilotta says. “We were very conscious of the abundant detail in the rest of the house.” Brass hardware plays surprisingly nicely with the brushed stainless-steel finish of the exposed appliances (only the refrigerator is hidden behind panels). “The mix of gold and silver tones works really well here, especially with the overall gray-and-black palette,” Bilotta says. Adds Witkin, “It’s a classic white kitchen but the finishes and furnishings make it playful and extraordinarily unique.”

stone topped the wishlist for the contemporary kitchen backsplash and countertop

a playful pattern defines this tile floor

an airy dining nook completes the contemporary kitchen

The stone wall below the breakfast nook windows is a holdover from when the space was an outdoor porch. Dufner Heighes designed a built-in wraparound banquette to maximize space and create more room for circulation than a traditional table/chairs setup would allow. The stone did make for tricky millwork installation, Bilotta recalls. “We had to fool around a lot with the paneling to get the bench just right, but the result is amazing.” The Wishbone chairs are by Hans Wegner.

the mudroom serves as an extension of the contemporary kitchen

When the Holborns purchased the property, the zone adjacent to the kitchen served as a small family room. The homeowners decided to convert the space, which connects to the back entrance, into a mudroom. “The shape of the little den wasn’t really conducive to hanging out, and the space is right off the driveway, so the conversion made sense,” Holborn explains. (A newly added second door now leads to the backyard, making it more accessible.) The design team specified the same cabinetry and flooring that was used in the kitchen proper, so the two spaces read as continuous. The mudroom functions as a hardworking hub for hanging coats, donning shoes, and storing kitchen gadgets; plus, the addition of window seats and a central table suits it to use as a breakfast nook, too. 

Cabinetry is increasingly being specified in locations beyond the kitchen and bath—from bars to libraries to TV rooms, Bilotta notes. “Our business really focuses on whatever room can have cabinetry in it, and as open-plan and one-room living have boomed, we’re doing more in those types of spaces than ever before.” 

bespoke accent tables add a touch of whimsy throughout

The kitchen and mudroom are not the only areas of the house that showcase stunning stones. Dufner Heighes specified the material for decorative touches in other rooms, too, including bespoke accent tables. In the sunroom, a multi-height Iacoli & McAllister coffee table sports a custom top in Turkish rainbow onyx from Artistic Tile; intriguingly, the veining runs in a different direction on each level. “That’s one of my favorite pieces in the entire house,” Holborn notes. “Everyone who comes over comments on that table. It makes the room.”

And in the family room, pinky Cosmopolitan quartzite tops a Fly cocktail table designed by Space Copenhagen. The Brazilian stone floats atop the table base rather than wrap around it—an effect at once grounded and elevated. “The table comes standard with a white-stone top and we thought, ooh, let’s put something more interesting on that,” Dufner recalls. “Using bold, traditional marbles on really simple modern pieces creates such a nice dynamic.” The use of slabs for small accent tables is great way to play around with a more exuberantly veined or patterned variety, Levinson agrees notes. “Both the Rainbow onyx and the Cosmopolitan are pretty intense when you see the full slabs on display in our Secaucus slab gallery, but fabricated and put in place, they’re definitely not overpowering.”

Artistic Tile: Flooring, Counters

bilotta: Cabinetry

CARL HANSEN & SØN: chairs, stools

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Louis Poulsen: Pendants

bilotta: Cabinetry

seungjin yang through the future perfect: pink stool

Dufner Heighes Transforms a Historic House in Pelham, New York into a Modern Family Home

Flip back a page, please. Now, kick up your feet, relax—here, have a cocktail—and observe this intriguing wood-paneled room: the resolutely leafy view, that groovy triangular window, the serene quiet, the vintage-heavy furniture scheme. Bet you think this is the living room of some cozy ’70’s-mod cabin on a remote rural plot, right? Well, surprise! In fact, this is the second-floor sitting room of a painstakingly preserved century-old Edwardian-style manse within shouting distance (although please don’t; the baby’s sleeping) of the Bronx.

Dufner Heighes was the firm tasked with future-proofing the historic Pelham, New York, house for a growing family. The 7,100-square-foot dwelling has an intriguing back story. Previous owners include the island nation of Barbados, which used it as an embassy, and a Coca-Cola executive who frequently hosted President Eisenhower there back in the 1950s. Another head of state, George Washington, reportedly stayed on the property, too, in a structure that once stood on this abode’s exact footprint. That provenance piqued the interest of Erica Holborn, CEO of Sandow Design Group (Interior Design’s parent company) and a self-professed real-estate enthusiast. “I’m a house-with-a-story person,” she admits.

When Holborn and her husband, Andrew, first saw the property listing, they deemed the eight-bedroom too big for their needs. Fast forward a year later. Their Dufner Heighes–designed Sutton Place apartment was getting a bit too snug for their expanding family (especially with WFH in the mix), and their upstate getaway, a 1970’s A-frame designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protégés, was too far from the city for full-time residency. Plus, the Holborns got an offer on the latter that they couldn’t refuse. So when the price dropped on the Pelham place around the same time, they finally took a look—and were sold.

Among the structure’s many attributes was that it had been pristinely restored, from the oak millwork to the original hardware. “It was a perfect situation, because the previous owners had updated a few things, like the kitchen, but restored everything else—stripping layers of paint off moldings and all that stuff no one wants to deal with,” notes Daniel Heighes Wismer, firm copartner with Greg Dufner. In short, it was practically turnkey. Early site visits suggested the project would be primarily decorative and cosmetic: reupholstering some existing furnishings, buying new items to fill in a few gaps, replacing antique light fixtures with more modern designs, updating cabinetry, hanging artwork. Midway through planning the new kitchen, however, it became apparent the current footprint was underscaled for the size of the house and had an awkward, dinky island unsuited to cooking and dining. “During one of our meetings with the team from Bilotta, with whom we were designing the kitchen,” Wismer recalls, “someone questioned whether we could tear down a wall to annex the adjoining butler’s pantry—and that changed everything,” necessitating plumbing and electrical rerouting plus new structural steel. “My dream has always been to have a butler’s pantry,” Holborn sighs. “And then I finally buy a house with one—and promptly take it out!”

The monthslong renovation was well worth it. The new scheme is much brighter and airier, with a long Arabescato Corchia marble island that seats four, plus a window-wrapped breakfast nook. Dufner Heighes deployed two patterns of Artistic Tile terrazzo flooring, one incorporating marble chips, to create area rug–like accents that delineate spatial zones. Shaker-style cabinetry is simpatico with the period architecture yet modern enough to suit the décor. The same flooring and cabinetry also extend into an adjacent space, a former family room that now serves as a storage-packed mudroom.

The reinvention of a living space as service-oriented hub made sense, given the floorplan already offered a generous number of hangout areas, including the ground-floor salon and contiguous sunroom, a second-floor playroom for two-year-old Marlowe and baby Bodhi, a sitting room off the primary suite, and the family and game rooms that anchor the daylit basement level. “The challenge,” Dufner says, “was how to make each living space feel like it had a unique function and purpose.” Seating in particular was selected with specific activities and postures in mind. Thus the salon’s more upright Bob sectional, its firm, snakelike form perfect for perching with a glass of wine; the sunroom’s more lounge-y Bouroullec Brothers Ploum sofa, a holdover from the upstate house (albeit newly reupholstered); and the super deep, nap-conducive sofa in the family room, where TV viewing occurs.

Though the house has a traditional layout, with discrete rooms, they open graciously onto each other, and curating sight lines was particularly important. Many features were considered holistically so they would work together from room to room. On the first floor, for instance, “there are points where you can see the ceiling fixtures in the sunroom, living room, entry hall, and the dining room all at once,” Wismer explains. “So the lighting we specified all needed to work within their respective rooms and also as a cohesive group.” Furniture and other accents were chosen and placed similarly, he adds. “There was a balancing of where we could go a little wild and where something had to be toned down so it wouldn’t get too heavy or layered.”

Speaking of going a little wild, check out the dining room wallpaper. The pattern, a trippy graphic confection in riotous hues, tents the room, extending up from crisp wainscoting lacquered a mercurial green-gray color. The op art patterning is the perfect jazz riff on the abode’s 1914 bones. “The contrast between historic and modern is just so great,” says Wismer. A sentiment that summarizes the project top to bottom.

knoll: sofa

dunbar: side table

design for macha: ceiling fixture

through noguchi shop: floor lamp

garrett leather: armchair shearling

kvadrat: side chair fabric

blå station through scandinavian spaces: sofa

house of finn juhl: chairs

Gubi: coffee table

aronson’s: rug

bd barcelona through ddc: green side table.

Fredericia: daybed

lawson-fenning: vessels

bilotta: cabinetry

Artistic Tile: flooring

seungjin yang through the future perfect: pink stool

Blu Dot: yellow ottoman

through noguchi shop: pendant

Louis Poulsen: pendants

voutsa: wallpaper

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Carl Hansen & Son: chairs

iittala through fiskars group: glass birds

bd barcelona through ddc: credenza

aronson’s: rug

mitchell gold + bob williams: sofa

aronson’s: rug

Carl Hansen & Son: Lounge

Blu Dot: side table

through john derian: artwork

ligne roset: sofa

iacoli: coffee table

CB2: side table

Artistic Tile: flooring, counters

bilotta: cabinetry

Carl Hansen & Son: chairs, stools

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Louis Poulsen: pendants

casey johnson studio: custom table

Blu Dot: ottoman

through john derian: flowers

aj madison: appliances

lee jofa: wallpaper

through design within reach: rocking chair

dunbar: sofa

house of finn juhl: coffee table

floyd: shelving

stokke: crib

rejuvenation: ceiling fixture

nessen lighting: gold lamp

&tradition: coffee table, ottoman

Carl Hansen & Son: green lounge chair

mitchell gold + bob williams: sofa

aronson’s: rug

kvadrat: mama bear chair fabric

zak & fox: club chair fabric

design for macha: ceiling fixture

michael robbins: bench

lawson-fenning: bed

once milano: quilt

aronson’s: rug

flavor paper: wallpaper

Gubi: mirror

visual comfort through circa lighting: table lamps (sitting room, dining room, family room, bedroom); ceiling pendant (living room, dining room, foyer); floor lamps (living room, nursery); reading lamp (living room)

through furniture from scandinavia: items from fredericia, house of finn juhl, gubi, carl hansen & sØn, louis poulsen, and &tradition

RIOS Turns to Healing Elements for the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine in Los Angeles

If ever there were a multilayered hybrid collaboration, it is the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine. A long, narrow new-build oriented on a north-south axis not far from the University of Southern California’s campus, it encompasses 84,000 square feet across five floors, and includes 3,500 square feet of coveted outdoor space. HLW completed the structure’s core and shell architecture. RIOS, under the leadership of creative director and partner Sebastian Salvadó, handled the remainder of the project, which took three years to complete, just as COVID-19 hit the scene.

Primarily a cancer research initiative, the institute is led by founding director and CEO David Agus, a physician and researcher, and was spearheaded by Oracle Corporation cofounder and noted billionaire Larry Ellison’s $200 million donation. A place for both labs and clinical services, it is a healthcare facility, but it’s also a workplace requiring offices, conference rooms, lounges, and staff amenities. Adding to the hybrid designation is the project’s educational component, which consists of a gallery celebrating medicine’s history and advances and an event space for symposia, and a repertoire of blue-chip artwork, much of it coming from Ellison’s private collection.

“The program is broken into three types of spaces,” Salvadó begins. Solitary rooms are for focused work. Lounges encouraging collaboration are dubbed transitionary spaces. They adjoin public zones, which include conference rooms and a kitchen. Arriving at the concept was not only Salvadó and the RIOS team but also the doctor and the donor. “Sebastian was amazing in figuring out a way to include me in every decision,” Agus enthuses. “He made models so I could understand.” And Larry, who Agus first met while treating his nephew, was “involved in every decision, too.” To which Salvadó adds, “Our goal was to take Agus’s vision and translate it into a built space.” It’s a holistic vision, including wellness programs and nutrition counseling, that acknowledges nature as a healer, while also integrating AI, physics, biology, math, and engineering.

Labs hold the key to the project’s organization. They are visually open to everyone on all floors and on all sides of the building. It was an expensive move but worth every penny: It not only anchors internal neighborhoods but also guarantees interdependency and that user paths intersect. Circulation is anything but orthogonal and the scheme is quite a departure from standard silo situations. The predominant use of wood—in the white-oak exposed ceiling and beams, thermally modified ash-slat partitions, and brushed oak flooring—is unusual, too. The setting is warm and “reminiscent of old warehouses,” Salvadó notes, and also underscores the project’s nature-centered theme.

Set atop a two-story parking garage, the institute centers on a three-story atrium. A pair of stairways lined with live plants (as well as elevators) lead up to reception on the atrium’s second floor, where the gallery is also located. From there, a path proceeds to a lab fronted by a large glass expanse so that even visitors can see in. Nearby is the donor wall, its brass plaques arranged in the form of an olive branch, the ancient symbol of healing. Toward the back of this floor is Agus’s office, a bright aerie complete with a Charles and Ray Eames lounge chair upholstered in indigo corduroy, a slatted wood ceiling, and access to a landscaped terrace. It’s here that, among other work, Agus meets with donors, broadcasts lectures, and writes; his fourth book is a deep dive into nature, which he believes holds all the answers.

That’s in step with the large, Pacific Ocean–facing terrace off the building’s skylit top floor, half of which is devoted to office areas and staff amenities, including a combined gym and yoga studio and a librarylike lounge with shelves of books holding the entire sequencing of the human genome. The other half of the floor is dedicated to patient care. Although more clinical and white than the institute’s other areas, forms, such as the check-in desk, are rounded, and vertical surfaces are wrapped in grass cloth-esque wallcovering. A bridge spanning the atrium connects the two sides and adjoins the project’s experiential aspect: a grass and rock garden built on top of one of the labs. “It’s not Japanese but more West L.A,” Salvadó says. “The gravel looks like beach sand and the greenery is bright like what’s found in the Santa Monica Mountain canyons.”

Hope and love, also crucial to healing, are literally spelled out in Robert Indiana’s immense sculptures, both located in the atrium lobby. They’re joined by pieces elsewhere in the hospital by such bold-face names as Jim Dine, Keith Haring, and Ai Weiwei.

Le Corbusier famously said, “A house is a machine for living in.” Agus proffers his version. “RIOS made a building that enables us to work. The building is not separate from the work, it’s part of it.” He hopes it encourages the next generation to enter science and medicine to discover a cure.

Art Therapy

At L.A.’s Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, concerns for health and wellness extend beyond research, labs, and treatment clinics. Art plays a part in healing, too—at least it does to the institute’s founder and CEO David Agus and establishing donor Larry Ellison, also known as the cofounder of Oracle. Together they conceived of a plan in which art would pervade—and elevate—the premises. Among the artists featured are Bunny Burson, Jim Dine, Donald Sultan, and Ai Weiwei.

“I had the privilege to work with Steve Jobs,” Agus says. “He implanted in my brain that every detail matters.” Jobs’s fellow tech titan Ellison donated many of the center’s pieces from his collection. So far, they number 35 and encompass a range of mediums, including a granite bust by Jaume Plensa. Some even allude to cancer, the institute’s primary research initiative. One is Jeff Koons’s 12-foot-tall magenta sculpture of an elephant; the animal has genetic mutations precluding it from developing the disease. Another is Jacob van der Bruegel’s mixed medium covering a wall on the building’s top floor. Its components resemble cancerous cells as seen under a microscope while searching for better treatment.

RIOS: clarissa lee; devin miyasaki; erin williams; haoran liu; laura kos; melanie freeland; misato hamazaki; nicole robinson; tom myers

Oculus Lighting: Lighting Consultant

Harold Jones Landscape: Landscaping Consultant

Risha Engineering: Structural Engineer

CRB Engineering: mep

Systems Source: furniture dealer

Andrea Feldman Falcione: art consultant

KBDA: gallery consultant

Sierra Pacific Constructors: general contractor

Tom Dixon: tables (lounge)

Bla Station: sofas

tech lighting: pendant fixtures

muuto: chairs (lounge), rug (library)

Design Within Reach: chairs (library)

Indo: table

Luminii: linear fixtures (gym)

Regupol: flooring

Kvadrat Maharam: curtain fabric

Louis Poulsen: pendant fixtures (lounge)

tacchini: white sofa, ottoman

bernhardt design: lounge chair

Hay: side chair

Pierre Augustin Rose: coffee table

Green Furn­iture Company: benches

MDC: wallcovering (hall, clinic reception)

Miller Knoll: chairs, ottoman (office)

Systems Source: custom desk

armstrong: ceiling

XAL: recessed ceiling fixture

bentley: carpet

Amerlux; Lucifer: lighting

Ariana Rugs: custom carpet

Thermory: wall slats, ash flooring

Galleher: custom oak floor planks

Benjamin Moore & Co.; Dunn-Edwards; Farrow & Ball; Sherwin-Williams Company: Paint