This San Francisco Residence Is a Practically 12-12 months Inventive Challenge Within the Making

December 29, 2022

0 1 5 minutes read

Perhaps anyone who has lived in a post-college house share of a certain era knows this story: Roommates (and their pets and significant others) come and go—often they are Craigslist strangers or friends of friends—and their mail will come to the address for eternity. And, above all, no individual roommate is too concerned with the design decisions of what will certainly be a transient living situation.

For San Francisco-based designer and architect Anand Sheth, a two-level Mission District flat, located on the upper floors of a classic Victorian home, was his version of the post-college house story, and it was turning out to be a pretty classic (and quintessentially SF one) at that.

“We had crappy parquet floor tiles that were popping up everywhere,” he mentions of the space when he arrived in 2011 (after his friend responded to, yes, a Craigslist ad). “We had the original lath and plaster wall construction. We had peeling paint everywhere. Every room was lit with hardware store lighting.” Anand and his friend lived with a life coach and an entrepreneur in yoga tech—ages ranging from 22 to 40—and everyone was going about their own life at their own pace.

And it is at exactly this point in my conversation with Anand, dear reader, that I realize I, someone who was also living in a post-college house share in the Mission when I was 22, had in fact been to a party at Anand’s House where the life coach read my tarot cards as I held his pet boa constrictor. It’s quite likely that Anand and I met that night in the early 2010s, but what must be noted is that the version of the house you see today is nothing like the home I visited then. That is due entirely to Anand’s vision to see the potential of the home—that it had to be something more.

Shop out the look of the house here ⤵

In 2013, the older guys moved out (and took the snakes with them) while Anand, who specializes in commercial, hospitality, and residential interiors (and recently started his own firm) invited friends to move in. Leveraging the fact that he was a professional architect, he struck a deal with the landlord that allowed him to embark upon a few serious renovation projects and act as a project manager for the construction. In other words, he brought his work home.

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“Over time we installed new hardwood floors, we patched and repainted the plaster walls, we replaced every light fixture, every plumbing fixture,” Anand says of his initial undertakings. Even many of the doors and windows were replaced under his guidance.

Each year, he tackled new projects and took on a bit more of the structure while convincing his roommates to stick around an active construction site. Little by little, people moved in and people moved out, and Anand found himself taking on more of the apartment until he was the sole tenant and set up a dedicated office in what had previously been a bedroom. Over the years, the space has functioned as a test kitchen of creativity, a laboratory, a design playground. Each room feels like its own immersive universe, and so much more than an ordinary rental.

Anand's bedroom, with a south facing deck, is bathed in Coral Spice by Benjamin Moore. Vintage planters and mirror sculpture, prints by Ronan Bouroullec, neon flower sculpture by Meryl Pataky, rug by Haworth, and Kartell Componibili storage unit.

In the living and dining rooms, he was inspired by old-world salons. “I was thinking, Let’s make a big impact in this room with a lot of different color choices, and let that be the room for that type of play,” he says of choosing the dark red shade from Farrow & Ball and pairing it with Wolf Gray and White Dove from Benjamin Moore. “I’ve always really appreciated the party centered around your art and your music and the culture that you bring into the world.”

The bedroom—a warmer, more tranquil cocoon than the entertaining spaces—is clad in Coral Spice by Benjamin Moore. “I really like when a color can be immersive—I really gravitate away from the accent wall. “I often want to push color to be something that really immerses you in an environment. I think it just makes you feel like there is this really strong intention here and it’s not just a backdrop. It is something that can vibrate into your life.”

Another view of the bedroom—and a peek at the staircase that leads to the attic. Noguchi lamp, print by Ronan Bouroullec, runner by Hem.

He’s infused the space with work from artists he knows, respects, and often uses in projects for his clients. “I feel like the more I can connect my work self with my self self, the better,” he says of his use of handmade work. “My form of this is a way of really relying on a community of artful, passionate, creative experts to infuse wherever you are into whatever you’re creating. So even a commercial office for a tech company valued at a billion dollars is going to have art from my neon sculpture friends and pieces from small businesses all across the country.”

Anand's studio and office space on the lower level of the flat. Stool by Alvar Aalto.

Nearly 12 years into his personal and professional post-grad journey, the space has been home base for his pursuits. “Even when I’m making my own really distinct decisions, I am constantly thinking of how that benefits the space, how that benefits the landlord, how that benefits changes I want to make in the future,” he says. “I do think that it was a very lucky scenario for me to have found this place with my friend (who actually found it first) and then to just invest in it and sit here for a decade and let it grow, let myself grow in here—instead of feeling the need to move and change with every time my life changed.”

Of course, this old Victorian house and its many iterations has seen him through. “This flat has been kind of like a journal for me. It’s really carried me through a lot of different areas of my life.”

As an architect who’s worked on historic buildings and adaptive reuse projects, Anand’s current work fuses that expertise with interior design. “My favorite projects are when all those things can come together, including the history of an existing building and those many little decisions to honor the story and the history that I see in this apartment,” he says. “There was a lot of existing detailing that I was happy to see. There’s so many places where it’s been erased, because of some sort of cost efficiency or damage or lack of maintenance. And this place, even it was feeling like a college apartment, it definitely had these bones still intact.”

In the guest room, a custom pivoting bookshelf by Medium Small. Printed by Kyler Martz. Ceramics by Concrete Collaborative and by Anand. Anand scaling the ladder that leads to the attic guest room (which, as my memory recalls, once held a hanging swing and a lot of Burners).

Anand scaling the ladder that leads to the attic guest room (which, as my memory recalls, once held a hanging swing and a lot of Burners). “Old Anand is up there,” he says of the midcentury furniture he furnished the space with “on a budget.”

In the guest room, which served as Anand’s office in a recent configuration, a vintage Bank of America teller cabinet sourced from Alameda Flea Market served as a nightstand. Bed by West Elm, wall hanging by Meghan Shimek. The room also features an oculus that looks down to the entry stairwell. Floors are Dragon’s Breath by Benjamin Moore.