The unveiling

By SASHA PAULSEN
Register Features Editor

It was a month ago that we first visited the Riverfront, the intriguing new Napa development nearing completion on Main Street. The mixed-use Riverfront combines retail space on the street level with condominiums above it.

We were in the company of designer Thomas Bartlett, who’d volunteered to decorate a flat for them as a showcase of possibilities. We walked into a small set of four rooms — kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living/dining room — with a terrace overlooking the Napa River. The walls were white and bare, the rooms empty’ It was a blank slate.

For the next four weeks we followed Bartlett’s trail as he assembled the elements to transform this plain Jane into a fabulous woman of the world. We watched the paint going on the walls, the curtains going up, and furniture and art work arriving, piece by piece.

Still, it was surprise to walk into the finished work this week.

“I still have a few things to do,” Bartlett said; nonetheless, it looked pretty complete to us, right down to the fresh flowers on the table set for dinner.

Bartlett attributed the speed of this transformation to the team of people he called on, along with the fact that he was providing much of furnishings from his own collection.

And what a collection it is: eclectic but sophisticated, French, Italian, English and Mexican items, modern, antique and reproductions, all happily co-existing in a space that is also eminently livable.

Even the space just outside the entrance from the interior courtyard of the Riverfront has been turned into a welcoming area with outdoor furniture from Bartlett’s own line of products.

The kitchen is now filled with antique copper cookware, French pottery and cookbooks.

A bookshelf between the kitchen and living room is filled with books from Bartlett’s own collection — all hardbacks, he noted. “I only buy paperbacks if I have no other choice” — and it’s flanked by antique Portugese chairs.

What had seemed to be a daring choice in the living area — bringing in large pieces, including a statue, and a tree, effectively created a cozy space for quite a few people. All the team who’d worked on the project promptly made themselves comfortable in the living room on the several French chairs and settee. “All we need is a martini,” quipped Michael Gibson, from Fine Interior Finishes, who was responsible for the eco-friendly seafoam green paint (from CSI Paints in Napa) now covering the walls.

“The background color holds it all together,” Bartlett explained.

There was a tray with wine and glasses in the kitchen.

More of Bartlett’s outdoor furniture line, along with large blue and white Mexican pots, planted with sunflowers and snapdragons, herbs and tomatoes.

In the bedroom, an Italian daybed is placed at an angle, making room — in a small space — for a dresser, two chairs and a round table that fills the corner beyond the bed. An elegant Italian reproduction mirror, paintings of Greece, a plant and framed photos complete the room.

Even the bathroom got designer touches — “fluffed out,” Bartlett said — with a painting, a pewter lamp and plush towels stacked on bamboo chairs. “I just love those chairs,” the designer said.

What’s also striking is the small details — the mirrored cubes that sit on a reproduction of an Italian credenza in the space between the bedroom and bathroom; the set of marble obelisks on a table in the living room; the painting with traces of blue that hangs just behind two large Mexican temple urns and just echoes their color. Silver framed photos, also Bartlett’s, sit on different tables.

Another striking element of drama comes from the curtains, both in the living room and the bedroom. The gold and white silk curtains in the living room are splendidly luxurious, as are the soft, sumptuous blue-green, hand-painted ones in the bedroom.

Barbara Beckmann’s Napa business painted the fabric, which was, in turn, sewn up by Royal Draperies, also in Napa. Owner Sharon Lomonaco said she had kept her sewing staff hopping to complete both the curtains and the linen for the bed, and the cushions for the outdoor furniture.    

One of the secrets to the drape of the curtains, Lomonaco explained, is there is an inner lining for the Dupioni silk, as well as the visible lining.

“I’m pleased with how it turned out,” Bartlett said. He added that usually a job of this magnitude would take four to six months, part of the time spent in getting to know what the client wants.

“The secret to this was that everything was available,” he said, and that people like Lomonaco, Beckmann, Gibson were willing to help. Another player was Jon Freeman, owner of Tiberian Design in San Francisco, who provided the collections of the rare, Intaglio seals in his hand-made, museum quality frames that hang on the walls of the entryway and the bedroom.

“I didn’t want it to look staged,” Bartlett said, “but rather like a person lives here — a single person who has traveled the world collecting treasures,”  who will use the Napa pied-à-terre on visits to wine country, for entertaining friends and relaxing in comfortable luxury.

 “People will say to me, ‘Is this what you like?’” Bartlett said, “and I tell them, ‘I’m here to give you what you like.’”

He promptly had a dozen people volunteering to be this fictional client and start mixing up the martinis.

Seeing the showcase

Nearly everything Bartlett used in creating the showcase will be available for sale. (“I don’t think anyone would want to buy my photographs,” Bartlett remarked.)

Monica Benyo, director of marketing for the Riverfront Residences, said the Bartlett showcase will now become part of the tour she conducts for prospective buyers. The tours are scheduled on weekends, by appointment. The flat will also be open during the soon-to-be-scheduled grand opening celebration. For more information, or to schedule a tour, contact Benyo at 252-5463.

The team

• Thomas Bartlett Interiors, Napa

• Scott Williams, CSI Paint

• Michael Gibson, Fine Interior Finishes

• Sharon Lomonaco, Royal Draperies, Napa

• Barbara Beckmann, Barbara Beckmann Designs, Napa

• Tiberian Design, San Francisco

• Classic Refinishing, Cordelia

• Dogfork Lamp Arts, San Francisco

• Shears and Window, San Francisco

• Rossi Antiques, San Francisco

• Monica Benyo, Riverfront Residence marketing

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