Bar 21 Montage House

The owners vision was quite extraordinary and yet by no means indicative or common for what you find along the coast of New Port or Laguna.  When I was hired to take over the home and create the Interior Life Style, I had my work cut out for me.

The owners are very eccentric in style and manor, but I knew the home was going to be sold, so I wanted to re-interpret their concept to something more elegant, timeless and meaningful to a new buyer.  Which meant I needed to break down all the hard cold surfaces and help the home to find balance, sophistication and most of all, accentuate the zen like quality that was hiding below all the rough surfaces.

When I approached the bar area, with the open air environment.  I immediately felt this would set the precedence and uniqueness of the home, simply by the first impression of all those that entered.

I left all the original cement walls as completed by the developer, but felt it was very important to captivate both the female and male audience.  To do this, I decided to incorporate both an Industrial vibe by design of the shelving unit with the floating glass shelves and stainless steel structure… and yet bring in the subtle texture and materials of a more vintage room, paying homage to “Good old Men’s Smoking Room”.  Which then became about beautiful unique leathers for the strapping under the glass shelves, the custom Metallic Italian Leather for the beautiful leather swivel chairs, that I designed specifically for the room.  Even shopping the style of buckle that I would incorporate onto the chair was very important to me and came from a small dress shop in Manhattan.  The fur hides were another important element to add more textures.  The coffee table and console were again Custom Designed and created by me specifically for this room.  Which meant a great deal of time and energy into the proportions, materials, feel and finishes.

Through out the house you will see a great deal of different materials chosen by me for the window treatments, for me, it is always was very important to break from standards and comfort zones of design and incorporate my signature dichotomy in design, which was the use of seemingly very classical materials and patterns, typically reserved for much more traditional styled homes.  This to me is always the unexpected feature that most can not put their finger on, which also makes my projects stand out.

Finally, when it was time to invite the guest to the bar. (referring to the alcohol list)..(of course the most important aspect of the entire room and my favorite thing to do), was to pick the contents of the bar.  This is where my years of designing for extremely successful men and knowing their taste gives me great advantage to knowing just how to capture their attention.

-Shelley Starr