Santa Barbara Chic with Erinn V.

“I wanted the house to be warm and textural,” she said, “with a nod to the California Spanish aesthetic of the architecture and the Mediterranean feel of Santa Barbara in general.”

True to form, the designer’s point of reference for this project thesis was old European architecture. The floors are aged, and the subtle black and white palette, an Erinn V. signature, offers a sophisticated throughline that ties the house together.

Once the overall tone was established, Valencich set her sights on the undisputed heart of the home:

A soulful kitchen with tumbled limestone floors, white oak cabinetry and a carefully calibrated assortment of fixtures and finishes. “When I’m designing a kitchen, it’s important to consider that it’s where everyone wants to be. Throughout my career, I’ve often worked from home, so I knew the breakfast bar, with its great views, would be the perfect place to set up my laptop.”

When it came to layout, Valencich made the decision to position her sink in the spot with the best ocean views.

“People tend to want to give the primary bedroom the best views, but most of the time you’re in there, you’re asleep! I always start with: where do you spend the most time during the day?” With brass cabinetry hardware and black lighting fixtures, the Juxtapose Collection in mixed brass-and-black finish was a natural choice. “The faucet was one of the first selections I made, and I built the rest of the room around it,” she says. “When it comes to getting dressed and choosing jewelry, I’ll wear black and silver and gold all together, and I love mixing finishes in a room, too.”

“When people come into your home, they’re probably going to turn on the water at some point. It matters whether those things are quality, and with Kallista, you can actually feel the difference.”

Thus, the designer’s where-to-spend-it logic is dictated by a home’s biggest touchpoints – literally. In this powder room, as with many she designs, she chose brass One Collection fixtures to make the most of a small space. “Here, the faucet is your moment to shine,” she says. “If there’s one place to do a wall mount in an eye-catching finish, the powder room is it.”

Upon entering the primary suite, the view past
the fireplace into the bathroom creates an immediate
atmosphere of serene sophistication.

Built to house a single sink with the Central Park West faucet, the vanity is a custom designed floating piece meant to look like furniture, while the wraparound windows are dressed in top-down, bottom-up roman shades (from Valencich’s line with Hartmann & Forbes) that lend privacy without obstructing sightlines of the canyon.

Throughout the room, this airiness is grounded by strong choices in the hardware and accents.

Central Park West fixtures in Unlacquered Brass temper the black shower enclosure, bringing patina and tactility to the space, while a black marble bowl and wooden stool offer the subtle punctuation that every room needs.

“If you have an endless amount of space and can do anything you want, you often end up with something boring,” Valencich says. “When you’re challenged architecturally, it often breeds the best design.”

Though Valencich and her family have recently moved on from this home, she remembers it fondly as the first space she ever designed expressly to suit their needs. “It’s important to think about your daily path,” the designer says. “If you were to watch yourself day after day, where are you walking? Where are you going? And how are you using your home? When a home flows really seamlessly like this, those daily rituals are easy to carry out.”