Designer Kerry Joyce delivers eclectic style
Key to creating beautiful homes revealed in book ‘The Intangible’
Kerry Joyce is soft spoken and humble, a guy who’d rather talk about his clients than himself. That explains why the Los Angeles-based designer is talking about his first book, rather than the latest in a collection.
Joyce, whose products can be found at the Matt Camron Rugs and Tapestries showroom in Houston, will visit the city for a book signing for “The Intangible” (Pointed Leaf Press; $90; 240 pp.) on Thursday at Found on West Alabama. Filled with pages of gorgeous interiors, the oversize coffeetable book is even bound in a totem design by one of his newest collaborators, ceramicist Heather Rosenman.
His work spans nearly three decades and includes creating beautiful homes for a variety of clients as well as designing rugs (for Mansour Modern), lighting (for Palmer Hargrave) and furniture (for Dessin Fournir). He also owns Kerry Joyce Textiles.
Like many, Joyce’s venture into the interior design world was indirect. His first love was the theater, and after acting in community theater as a teen, Joyce earned a bachelor’s degree in scenery and lighting design from the New York University School of the Arts. After working in TV and theater for a number of years, Joyce opened a store filled with architectural antiques and other salvaged materials, which led to a customer asking for help on their home.
He’s won a slew of
awards, from a 1978 Emmy for set decoration for a Ben Vereen special to being named one of the top interior designers in America by Forbes, Metropolitan Home and House Beautiful magazines.
Q: Tell me about that first big step into interior design from a theatrical world that was so different.
A: My background is in theater and TV, variety shows, then in architectural products with a business I opened in Los Angeles, Designer Resource. That business was part of my education in architecture. I had to know how columns and mantels go together. One day, a client came to me about a remodel — a kitchen and bath — and it turned into remodeling the entire house.
That one first project turned into the beginning of my career. I won a design award for it from Metropolitan magazine, and it put me on the map.
Q: It’s hard to believe this is your first book. Why did you wait so long to document your work?
A: My clients have always been more important to me than myself. Often they take up all of my time. I have my fabric company, which takes less time because I can walk away for months and come back. In interior design, you have things to solve every day, if you’re doing a good job. With this book, I’m trying to make the client me.
Q: So many books present interior design as one HGTVready room after another. Yours is vastly different, showing projects that vary so much and look like they’re full of things curated over a lifetime. How do you approach each project to be so different?
A: I don’t want my homes to feel like they’ve been touched by a decorator-decorator. I’m trying to make a home that has heart, and part of that is instilling a sense of history into my designs — as if it quietly comes from the past. It’s hard to describe how I get there. If it’s a modern home, it could be vintage furniture that has a past. You can sense that from the patina of things.
Q: What are some of the ways other people can achieve that look?
A: With the right materials. If I do a house with brass fittings, I get unlacquered brass and have artisans antique it by washing it with steel wool. They put an antiquing solution on it, wipe it off and steel wool it again. It will have a soft mellow glow, as if it’s been polished for many years. On stones — marble and granite — I hone it. I take what looks like shiny, new stone and take the finish off, then top it with a dull finish and polish it back to something halfway in between so it has a mellow sheen as if it’s been used over time.
Q: Enough about other people’s homes. Tell me about yours.
A: I’m lucky to own three little homes. One is an English cottage in Hollywood that was designed by an old Hollywood art director. I redid the garden; it’s a charming English topiary backyard, and it makes me happy to look at it. Its interiors are transitional and midcentury, with lots of vintage pieces with a warm eclectic feeling. It’s only 1,700 square feet, which is tiny by California standards.
I also have a 700-square-foot, one-bedroom Manhattan apartment with a beautiful view of Central Park. It overlooks a church with an old copper steeple, and behind the park I have my cityscape. I’m in the process of remodeling the bathroom and kitchen; my furnishings will be sophisticated but comfortable. I go there about once a month because I have projects there.
My third home is in Connecticut, in Litchfield County between two historical towns. My husband and I go there for two weeks at Christmas, and we’re there about five weeks out of the year. I have 5 acres of river frontage, and no one can build across from me. It’s one of those magical properties that you say to yourself, ‘This is mine?’ It’s mostly traditional Colonial, and the upholstery is all traditional.
Q: You love adding a vintage or antique feel to every space. Where does that come from … did you grow up with that style?
A: I grew up in Massachusetts, about 18 miles from Boston, and my hometown had a lot of New England architecture. We lived in a middle-class, postWorld War II ranch-style home. We had Danish modern furniture before it was popular — if I only knew then — but we didn’t have any antiques.
Q: In Houston, art is increasingly becoming an important part of home design. Is it for your clients, too?
A: A lot of my clients, in their earlier days, weren’t as interested in art. They are becoming more interested in it now, and not just as decoration to have something pretty on the wall. Almost all of my clients now are interested in art, and I help some curate their collection or I find a curator for them. It does seem to be happening, and that’s good.