Subtle Pacific Island vibe ripples through condo
The Pacific Islands meet midcentury modern in a recently refurbished condominium on a quiet bend of the River Walk downtown.
The condo owner, who asked not to be identified by name, has roots in Hawaii and Guam. She wanted the apartment, which she purchased a year and a half ago, to pay tribute to that heritage in a way that was calming and sophisticated.
“She didn’t want Margaritaville,” said Tessa Hendrie, co-owner with her sister Alyssa Hendrie of the San Antonioand Malibu, Calif.-based design firm Bitchin’ Digs, who led the project. “No tiki huts, no surfboards, no kitsch at all.”
Perhaps the only obvious nod to the homeowner’s Pacific Island background are the palm frond prints on the living room walls. But the stark black and white images have an almost abstract quality.
At the same time, she also wanted the condo to reflect her love of the sleek, clean look of midcentury modern design.
It was a task Hendrie accomplished to startling effect. The six-month project, which was completed in December, transformed the two-bedroom, two-bath condo for just shy of $100,000.
The owner of the condo moved to San Antonio about 10 years ago to open the first of what are now six franchised L&L Hawaiian Barbecue restaurants. Most are located near military bases where service members with a hankering can find such Hawaiian comfort food as chicken katsu, kalua pork with cabbage and loco moco (hamburger patties and rice topped with brown gravy and fried eggs).
While Hendrie filled the second-floor apartment with kitsch-free Pacific Island iconography and reproduction midcentury furnishings, she also added some San Antonio salsa to the mix.
“I always incorporate what the client wants in my projects,” she said. “But I also take into account where they are geographically. And here, that starts with the view out the windows overlooking the river.”
Although the redone condo is dominated by shades of gray, she lessened the potential monotony by borrowing from the lush River Walk greenery. That also led to the etched green pendant lamps and bathroom wall sconces, the moss green chevron tile in the primary bathroom, the sage green bedding and the military
green of the kitchen island bar stools.
She wrapped the living room fireplace with plume glass mosaic tile in a floral pattern. The shine of the individual pieces, in shades of gray, blue and white with hints of mother-of-pearl, is enhanced by the small can lights in the ceiling above.
The homeowner concedes there were times when she questioned Hendrie’s design ideas and that she had to be talked down from her panic several times.
Hendrie had to convince her, for example, to paint the ceilings the same color as the walls, not only to make the rooms feel larger but also to hide the imperfections often found in older buildings.
Her argument won the day, and the walls and ceilings are now all one color.
They initially considered painting the red Saltillo tile floors, but instead decided to replace it with ceramic, which will hold up better to the condo owner’s granddogs.
Most of the furniture Hendrie found for the redesigned condo has the clean, softly curved lines and geometric patterns of midcentury modern, while hinting at the owner’s Asian Pacific roots with its black wood and rattan door panels.
While the condo owner said she doesn’t expect to do much cooking at home — she does most of that at her restaurants — the kitchen design was still important. She hopes to use her newly renovated apartment to entertain family and friends, especially for the upcoming Fiesta river parades.
To make the space more efficient, they expanded the pass-through opening between the kitchen and the living area, and widened and extended the marblelike quartz countertop connecting the two. The counter now serves as the condo’s only dining table.
“We didn’t want the added clutter of a separate table,” Hendrie explained. “Now there’s more room to entertain.”
One of their biggest splurges was replacing the sliding doors out to the patio deck.
“The doors used to have these really thick frames,” she said. “The new ones are thinner, so they let in more light. They also open a lot farther than the ones they replaced, and they’re more soundproof, making the apartment’s much quieter.”
One wall of the primary bedroom is papered in a gray, abstract pattern that vaguely resembles palm fronds, again tying in with the trees visible out the sliding glass door.
Neither of the two bathrooms is very large, so Hendrie installed barn-style shower doors that slide on a track, saving space compared to doors that swing open and containing shower water better than a curtain.
“I put barn doors in both baths to keep a symmetry between the two,” she said.
While Hendrie hewed to the “no kitsch” edict, at the end of the project, she presented the owner with a neon sign parting gift that reads, “The Spirit of Aloha.” It’s a phrase she uses to describe how she runs her restaurants.
Now, with the sign sitting on a living room sideboard, it describes how she lives her life, too.