A designer’s own home can be like a scientist’s lab, the place to test out new concepts, color combinations, and much more. It took Zoë Feldman all of six years to get her residence in Washington, DC, ready for official photographs, a time that involved its fair share of chaos but also an abundance of aha moments. “We touched pretty much every inch of the home, and we did it while living there,” says Feldman of the four-story space she shares with her husband, Matt Jantzen, and their two daughters. “I would never want to take six years again, though I likely will. I’m constantly inundated with beautiful things, so it’s a bit of the ‘shoemaker and the shoe’ issue.”
The property itself helped to narrow some of the designer’s choices. It’s a semi-detached, 2,000-square-foot house built in the 1920s in a style that recalls the architectural vernacular of Provence, France, with stuccoed exterior walls and windows flanked by wooden shutters. While Feldman, an AD PRO Directory designer, felt the interiors should reflect this traditional European aesthetic, she also wanted to display a series of modern and contemporary artworks, some of them abstract, others in the realm of Pop art. “I’m so lucky to have this wonderful art collection,” she says, explaining that her grandparents were art dealers. “That gave me an opportunity to play with the tension of old and new in a really natural way.” In Feldman’s hands, this tension translated into the kind of laid-back glamour that many designers attempt but few achieve, with dramatic moments mellowed by rustic touches, and a nuanced mix of saturated and soft hues.
