Hue consultant comes through for clients with flying colors

Jim Smith is railing against the home designs so prevalent on websites like Pinterest and Houzz and in magazines such as Architectural Digest and Dwell. In particular, his wrath is directed at the stark whites these arbiters of style present to homeowners, usually to the exclusion of other colors.

“Nowadays, especially among young people, they don’t want any color at all,” said Smith, the go-to color consultant among residents of some of San Antonio’s toniest neighborhoods. “It has to be what I call ‘typing paper white’ or there’s the door.”

To show what he means, he pulls out a photo of a stark, almost all-white room with little ornamentation.

“I cannot feel a pulse here,” he said dismissively.

Smith, 72, has been called a “house whisperer” because of his talent for finding just the right colors, alone or in combination, to fulfill his clients’ design goals — even if they don’t initially know what those goals are.

To show what he does like, he pulls out a magazine page showing a French salon-type room that’s the antithesis of minimalism.

“I love all the artwork on the walls, the plants and those red lampshades,” he said. “There are books on the coffee table, an African sculpture and a French couch. The walls are cream-colored so they’re not all white and sterile. We’re not going to perform surgery here, you know what I’m saying?”

In addition to working in neighborhoods such as Monte Vista, Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills, Smith also has done color consulting for Market Square, Blue Star Contemporary in the 1990s, an apartment complex in San Marcos, even a local Radisson Hotel.

Working with clients, Smith develops extensive color charts specifying multiple hues for everything from a single room to a whole house.

When he did a chart for Katherine Nelson Hall and Bruce

Josie Norris / Staff photographer Color consultant Jim Smith is a “house whisperer,” but he’s also worked with an art space, Market Square and a hotel.