Away from it all in her red room
Travel treasures in interior designer Anne Hepfer’s den create a feeling of escape and a bohemian vibe
Interior designer Anne Hepfer’s oasis is a small den at the front of her Forest Hill home. With its tiny proportions, red grass cloth walls and deep upholstered club chairs, it’s like a cocoon, attracting every member of the family — husband, kids, even the dogs.
“It’s a busy house,” Hepfer says. Busy with the activities of two sets of twins, ages 7 and10, plus her interior design business and her husband Christian’s equally demanding business.
So at the end of a busy day, the room the family refers to as “the red room” is where she withdraws to read or catch up with her husband, have a glass of wine and where the children inevitably make their way at some point. During the day, the dogs take over, paws flung over the back of the settee as they watch squirrels out the picture window.
“The red grass cloth walls were the only wall covering and colour we didn’t change when we moved into the house,” Hepfer says.
“My parents’ house in Connecticut, where I grew up, had a red library in it. I always loved this bold, enveloping colour, which feels like a jewelry box.”
The textured walls provide the landscape to display unique objects, thereby giving the space a bohemian vibe, Hepfer says. “When we travel, we always search for one little piece or trinket souvenir to bring home and place in the red room.” Indeed, the history of the Hepfers’ life as a family is curated in this room.
A profusion of artifacts line its shelves, are propped on the floor and hang on its walls, among them a Limoges box; pillows from India; lacquered trays from Burma; a papiermâché merry- go-round from Venice; woven baskets from Ecuador, Peru and Kenya; beaded baskets from the Samburu tribe in Kenya; a rich geometric Suzani rug found at an Istanbul bazaar; a Chinese trunk Hepfer found in an antique store in San Francisco; and carved gorillas from Rwanda, where the couple had gone on a gorilla trek.
There are photos. One shows Hepfer and her husband, both15, wrapped in blankets on a hill in St. Moritz, listening to the Dalai Lama. There’s also a signed photo of Ray Bolger, the actor who played the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz and who was a friend of Hepfer’s grandfather.
“Everything in the room has a story,” she says. “We have collected things for many years from places we have been, people we have met, and artisans who have made beautiful handicrafts that we admire so much.”
The layers and textiles in the collection add depth, dimension and interest to the room, while the items trigger wonderful memories, she says.
Hepfer and her family talk, play games, watch television, read and enjoy each other’s company in the red room. “Escaping the fast pace of the world we live in,” she explains.
For Hepfer, a successful oasis is one that allows its inhabitants to “turn off” the hectic workaday world, fosters intimate conversations and being present with others in the room.
The rest of Hepfer’s house is about as colourful and idiosyncratic as the red room. The entrance hall sports Venetian plaster painted in strips, the foyer is lacquered white, the dining-room wallpaper looks like handdrawn clouds in black and white, with bright pops of cobalt and purple, the living room, where the couple entertain, is blue, fuchsia, yellow and apple green.
“Our house is a world of colour — I love it and children need it, I believe,” Hepfer says. “We’re not thinking resale here, but people come over and think it’s so cool and get ideas.”
Hepfer was born and raised in the U.S. She and her husband were teenagers when they first met through family friends. They met again in New York, when she was working for an architect after earning her design degree at Parsons School of Design and Christian was working for an investment firm. Their Forest Hill home is a main reason why they have stayed in Toronto long past the two years they thought they’d be here before returning to New York. Not least is the red room. While Hepfer’s clients don’t specifically ask for an oasis, her standard process of learning who they are and what they are looking for in their home gives her pretty much what she needs to create “home as sanctuary.”
“I’m trying to put together pieces of the puzzle to understand my clients. It’s interesting the answers that come back,” Hepfer says.
The key to an oasis? “If you can enter a space and exit your thoughts, if you can slow down, breathe in. If you wake up in a bedroom that is your oasis, it sets the tone for the whole day.”