San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Designer Profile
Senalee Kapelevich creates highend interiors for residences, boutique hotels and restaurants.
Senalee Kapelevich definitely took the scenic route in becoming one of the Bay Area’s premier interior designers. A native of San Francisco, Kapelevich worked in the film and television industries as a production assistant and a buyer for Pottery Barn before starting SVK Interior Design in the Dogpatch almost a decade ago.
Now her portfolio includes highend condominiums, luxurious singlefamily homes, boutique hotels, offices, restaurants and retail spaces found throughout San Francisco.
Kapelevich earned her bachelors of arts in film studies from UC Berkeley before moving to New York City to work in the entertainment business. She worked on a couple of independent films, as well as a reality television show called “Gastineau Girls,” which followed around socialites from New York’s Upper East Side.
“It was literally ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ before the Kardashians were a thing,” Kapelevich said.
As a production assistant, Kapelevich’s tasks included searching for props and arranging sets. It was during this time that she first discovered a love for design. After several years in New York, she moved to Los Angles where she continued to design sets and search for vintage props for use in commercials and editorial shoots.
Kapelevich’s interest in interior design intensified after meeting a Southern Californiabased furniture collector who let her serve as a design consultant. After taking classes on AutoCAD, construction and design theory at the UC Berkeley extension in San Francisco and the Interior Design program at Canada College in Redwood City, Kapelevich softlaunched SVK Interior Design in 2010.
“It started by putting my services and resume on Facebook to show what I was capable of doing,” she said. “It started with bathroom remodels, then kitchens, then wholehouse renovations. In many cases, I was working for clients who were younger than myself. They worked in the tech industry and had disposable income but no time to do the design themselves.”
The native of the Sunset district bounced around the Bay Area quite a bit during her childhood, as her parents were still attending law school when she was born. In addition to living in San Francisco, Kapelevich spent parts of her formative years in Redwood City, Menlo Park and Half Moon Bay. She attended high school in San Bruno while her mother worked as an attorney in Palo Alto.
In this interview with The Chronicle’s real estate section, Kapelevich talks about what inspires her and how she went from show business to interior design.
Q: What are your favorite neighborhoods and cities to work in?
A: I tend to work a lot in Noe Valley, the Mission District and the Castro District. I love those neighborhoods because there’s a lot of great old Victorian architecture. I also enjoy working in St. Francis Wood and Monterey Heights, because those neighborhoods have so much history — and I love the fantastic Mediterranean architecture.
Q: How did you become an interior designer?
A: It started in New York, where I interned as a production assistant on a couple of independent films. One cool thing about working as production assistant was that I got to float around and work in different departments. I discovered I really loved working in the prop and set design departments. A few months later, I moved to Los Angeles and got a job with TimeWarner. One day I was shopping for props for a small shoot when I met a furniture designer who blended her furniture design and interior design. We clicked, and I asked her if I could work for her. It was a great experience. I got to do interior design consultation and had a lot of visibility to her process of making custom furniture for clients.
Fast forward several years and interior design classes later to 2010, when I launched SVK Interior Design. I created a website and also started to post some small projects on Facebook. The first several years of the business were really focused on renovation.
Then I started layering on furniture specification and design.
At the end of 2017, I really started to get interested in commercial design. Last year I worked on the new location for Mission Picnic, a very popular cafe in the Mission District.
At the beginning of 2019, I partnered with an existing client and worked on a concept for a men’s clothing store in Los Angeles (James Ryder). This was really fun and offers a great example of how far rendering technology has come.
Q: What’s your favorite style of architecture?
A: I do love and have appreciation for all types of architecture — traditional to modern. However, I do love to work on Victorians in San Francisco. I myself live in a Mediterranean home with parquet floors, exposed beams and dark wood.
Q: Are there certain design trends or materials you’re fond of ? What inspires you?
A: As I get older and grow as a designer, I find the spaces I get most emotional about don’t have to do with trendy finishes, they have to do with being a timeless space. Something that’s beautiful and timeless will capture my heart. I’m growing out of caring about trends and focusing more on creating something that will still feel this good 10 or 15 years from now. People want to buy something that’s going to last, and that’s the philosophy that guides me.
Q: What’s a piece of technology couldn’t imagine doing business without?
A: Pinterest. I’m obsessed with Pinterest. If there’s one piece of software that I’m on at 2 a.m., it’s Pinterest. It’s been a gamechanger. I still buy magazines and collect design books, but there’s no question Pinterest makes it so easy to find exactly what I’m looking for. I can go there and find Moroccan lighting for an entryway — basically the whole world opens up in seconds. Pinterest provides the most instant, immediate satisfaction to find stuff.
Q: What’s one of the projects you are most proud of ?
A: There’s a project I have been working on for two years in Cole Valley that was originally designed in the 1970s by a pair of architects as their personal residence. My clients bought it from the original owners in 2017. We did a light renovation focused on the kitchen and bathrooms and left the floor plan original. We worked with Henrybuilt on the kitchen, and used Heath tile in the bathrooms. We really tried to honor the original architecture and spirit of the home.
We just finished installing all the furniture, and now my client is working on installing some existing pieces of artwork and collecting some new and emerging female contemporary artists. I’ve gotten so much pleasure helping these clients turn this house into a contemporary home for a young family. They have taken a lot of risks with furniture shapes and styles, yet also stayed really functional. I will be photographing this home hopefully by the end of the summer.