Designers and tastemakers set the tone
beautiful things that have surrounded Susanna Salk all her life have shaped her style. They have also given her a profession, sounding off on style and décor in a series of books as well as the Quintessence video series on YouTube.
The drop-in home visits that are the basis of the “Quintessence At Home With” video series she films with Quintessence founder Stacey
Bewkes are the focus of the pair’s newest book, “At Home With Designers and Tastemakers: Creating Beautiful and Personal Interiors” (Rizzoli; $50; 256 pp.), which Salk will discuss on Oct. 13 during the Oct. 11-14 Fall Design Week in Houston, an event hosted by the Houston Design District.
Book authors, local and national designers and branding experts are on the four-day schedule. Access Design, an event usually hosted quarterly by the Houston Chronicle and the design district, will be part of Design Week events on Oct. 14. Houston interior designer Joani Scaff of Paisley House will talk about “Time to Exhale: The Creation of the Second Home,” and designer Veronica Solomon of Casa Vilora Interiors will discuss “Pandemic Perspective: Using Design to Create a New Authentic Home Life.”
Salk now lives on scenic
Lake Waramaug in Litchfield County in Connecticut but was raised on Boston’s north shore, an area with unique historic homes.
“My grandparents’ homes and my parents’ house were instrumental, without me even knowing it. It was on the ocean in Gloucester, and it was modern and filled with things from all over the world. They had Japanese art and modern furniture and old tapestries. It was precisely the kind of house I would have wanted to film,” Salk said. “You later think, ‘Wow this isn’t normal.’ You don’t see where you live as rarefied or different until you leave it.”
In their video series, Salk and Bewkes visit homes of tastemakers all over the world, filmed as if they just dropped in to take a look around. In fact, they do get a quick runthrough beforehand, but Salk always tells them not to explain anything in much detail off camera so the real video feels more spontaneous.
“I want people to feel like they’ve stopped at a friend’s house and they reveal their stories and information and inspiration,” said Salk, who hosts the episodes while Bewkes is the videographer. “I ran into a woman at the supermarket who said, ‘I need to remodel my kitchen. I don’t have a lot of money, but your videos give me the sense that I could do it on my own.’ ”
Salk’s career began in creative writing, not in design, as she studied at Vassar and then went to work for magazines such as Elle Decor and House & Garden. When she came up with her first book idea, her career path shifted from magazine work to book writing, adding the Quintessence video work a decade ago. The video series’ YouTube channel has more than 160,000 subscribers and gets more than 1 million views a month.
The home visits for the video series have even influenced Salk’s home. She visited one house where the homeowner had wallpaper with images of blue and white platters. When she got home, she looked at her own kitchen, declared it boring and bought the same wallpaper.
“I have learned a lot from all of these videos. I have learned the power of mixing the old and new. I learned to move things around and not get stuck. Our subjects don’t just inspire my audience, they inspire me, too,” said Salk, who often explains how things could be done at different price points. “My house is very eclectic and colorful, but edThe ited, super edited. I have no storage and there’s nothing in my basement — I’m a maximalist.”
In her talk Thursday, Salk will discuss her book and her work and provide behind-thescenes looks at both.
“I love hearing the stories behind the houses — the trials and tribulations of the renovation. All of that is important to me. I don’t care about where things are from or how expensive they are. If anything, I love it when they say this painting was $1 at a junk sale and it’s next to a Marie Antoinette chair,” she said. “One guy does have a Marie Antoinette chair, and his dogs use it as their dog bed.”
Each chapter of the book focuses on a different tastemaker, many of whom work in the design industry, even if they’re not architects or designers themselves.
There’s the historic Charleston, S.C., home of Jill Sharp Weeks, former design director of Ballard Designs, who prefers strong, edited, masculine spaces; the Connecticut shop/home of interior designer, landscape architect and antiques dealer Michael Trapp’s 1830s Greek Revival and an exotic international cast of furnishings on the interior; architect-designer David Netto’s midcentury California home designed by architect Richard Neutra, a glass house filled with furnishings by other icons: Le Corbusier, Jens Risom, Jean Arp and Mies van der Rohe.
The people who Salk and Bewkes feature often found their style voice early on, Salk said.
“What’s impressive about them is that they are always shopping and buying and finding wonderful new things for their home without getting worried about where it’s going to go. I’ll find a place for it. I’m OK with finding new things,” she said of their never-ending style pursuits.
Beautiful dining rooms stand out as an overall impression of the homes she visits, but Salk said the takeaway is so much more.
“It’s how consistent the vibe is, the soul of the house, everything is accessible, nothing is too serious and it’s all highly beautiful. It’s not about a particular thing; it’s the way they display personality,” she said.
While the subjects and their personalities and homes are always different, one thing they all have in common is what influences their style and the things they purchase.
“One commonality that you always see and believe is how all of these designers travel. They always have and always will. Travel and seeing the world is very important to them. It plays an integral process in how they learn and evolve,” Salk said.