Northern California Residence

Good morning dear readers. Had a nice weekend? Monday morning. How about touring a two-story stucco English-style manor house? Placed in Northern California, the interiors were designed by Joseph Matzo and Paul Vincent Wiseman, of The Wiseman Group Interior Design.

The furnishings are a multicultural hodgepodge: nineteenth-century English chairs, modern upholstered pieces, matchstick bamboo blinds, ancien régime fauteuils. The walls were dressed in integrally coloured plaster rather than paint, and the maple floors were unevenly stained to give them a blotchy, old effect.




The carpet echoes the living room’s ceiling. The curved lines of the mantel look nice but you cannot display objects on it.


Pale shades, particularly green, are used throughout the house. A Ming vase was made into a lamp. The Fo dogs are 19th century.


The living room’s print helps to bring the garden indoors. A 19th-century English armchair is before a towering walnut fall-front secretary crowned with creamy faience jars.


Beige plaster walls, a celadon carpet and peach and red silk accents make the dining room tranquil,” says the designer. “And the clean lines of the Hepplewhite chairs prevent it from being fussy.”


An antique mantelpiece highlights the family room. “To keep the space from being too formal, we fringed the draperies with hemp,” says Wiseman.


A mixture of French, English and Italian antiques and 19th-century photographs in the master bedroom.


An 18th-century bust of Louis XVI is on the master bedroom’s Louis XVI mantel.

Photography by Tim Street-Porter
Architecture by Legorreta + Legorreta

All images and information from Architectural Digest.