Old plus new equals timeless for San Francisco designer Jonathan Rachman

For Jonathan Rachman, the best home is one that is timeless.

There are no trendy details to give away the last time it had a makeover. It doesn’t appear as if an interior designer hit the design center and outfitted it with all the latest looks, or if the homeowner bought an entire room suite from Macy’s, complete with art prints on the wall that match the furniture.

The self-taught San Francisco interior designer vigilantly clings to the classic while also embracing the contemporary. He favors bold yet elegant wallpapers and fine fabrics like silk or velvet. He’s not afraid of tassels or fringe if the room calls for them. His furnishings are frequently sumptuous and inviting, with original and and even daring colors.

For a San Francisco Decorator Showcase, he did a foyer in “Gold and Champagne,” recasting and updating the “Heroin Chic” look that Kate Moss made famous in the ’90s into “Heroine Chic,” complete with the supermodel’s image applied to a mirror hung above a giltwood Georgian console.

An inveterate collector and lover of all things old and beautiful, Rachman sees nothing wrong with interlacing antiques with new pieces and accents in the same space.

“Something that is timeless is something you can’t quite pinpoint what period it is from,” he said. “I don’t want to go into a house that looks like it was done in 1995 or 2002. At the same time, you don’t want to go to a house that looks like a showroom.”

Rachman, who was born in Indonesia and spent time in Switzerland, also is militantly committed to a designing homes that tell a story, that are livable and always personal, reflecting the interests of the person who lives there.

He designed a weekend retreat in Wine Country with classic elements you might expect in an old country cottage: old-fashioned Wedgwood, a farmhouse kitchen, a Victorian brass bed. But another bedroom flirts with edginess, with a sumptuous silk headboard with silver nailhead trim, embossed crocodile-print pillows and dramatic black lampshades.

The home also is very much its owner’s, with places for the things they love. A collection of ceramics from Bali are displayed in a Dutch colonial case. A collection of porcelain has found a home in a vintage glass-door Italian cabinet.

Eclectic style with a big imagination

Rachman’s eclectic style, a fusion inspired by his native Sumatra and time spent in Switzerland, has won him space in high-end magazines like Elle Decor, Harper’s Bazaar and House Beautiful.

It’s also secured the loyalty of top Bay Area tastemakers. He counts among his friends San Francisco doyenne Denise Hale, who spends a lot of time at her ranch above Geyserville and is a soulmate of Rachman’s when it comes to interior design.

He offers a representative peek into some of his best work, including several properties in Wine Country, in his first monograph, “Currently Classic: Jonathan Rachman Design,” a coffee-table book published by Flammarion and slated for a Sept. 13 release.

In the forward, the Serbian-born Hale calls Rachman’s work “an extension of his personality — it is warm, inviting, stylish and luxurious.

“Everything is carefully considered: furniture perfectly placed and magical pieces chosen to give his rooms that dash of daring,” she writes. “His imagination is like no other.”

Rachman only glances at whatever is in vogue at the moment, preferring to follow his own muse. He is enchanted by the bespoke, such as the hand-painted wallpaper by London-based de Gournay, which can be found in homes as high-end as Kensington Palace. But he also is drawn to handmade crafts, provincial flea market finds, beautiful textiles, leather goods and art objects. None have to be expensive to be beloved and wonderful to behold in a room.

“People can get so contrived, so formulated, or go to extremes when going with trends,” he said. “People tend to follow the trend to the point where sometimes we can’t tell the difference between one designer and the next because they all look the same.”

One of his articles of faith is that a space must be inviting and comfortable. That advice can apply to any budget, whether you’re shopping at a design showroom or doing it yourself shopping Wayfair, Pottery Barn, consignment stories and estate sales.

“Nobody wants to live in a castle or a museum, or in dusty, stuffy room. That is one of the specialties I’m known for, being able to use the classic style in a current way that is livable,” he said.

So what defines classic elegance?

To Rachman, elegant is a room with a sofa in a proper scale, and furnishings, window and floor coverings and accents that “respect” the architecture of a house.

Materials, he said, are important.

“When people think about interior design, it includes the flooring, the baseboards, the crown molding, the ceiling, the fireplace mantle and the window trims,” he stressed. The architecture will define what is classic to that look.

In the book, he references two homes, not far from each other in the Napa Valley. One is a large and ultra-modern estate in St. Helena, with crosscut travertine walls. He softened the hard stone and glass and modern minimalist furnishings with surprise elements: a nearly 200-year-old crystal chandelier, a rococo mirror and neoclassical landscape paintings.

But elegance for the Wine Country cottage meant incorporating more of the antiques the owner loves, with a lot of wood and Victorian architectural elements. Rachman scored Louis XVI chairs, still bearing their blue leather cushions, in a Paris flea market.

“The ceiling is lower and things are smaller and more intimate, where the vineyard estate is super-grand, with a ceiling over 22 feet,” he said, comparing the two homes.

“But they have similar elements. No matter how grand or modern the estate is, I do want to achieve one thing in common, which is a welcoming and warmth. So instead of using all modern elements or all modern furniture, I inject some antiques and vintage items to warm it up. I create a story.”

A collector’s mindset

Rachman, whose studio is in San Francisco across from Zuni Cafe on Market Street and who lives in Carmel Valley, is a committed collector of antiques.

“There is not one project where I don’t use an antique, even in an ultra-modern design,” he said. He is drawn to all things Balinese, where he has personally spent a lot of time.

“Beside the craft and the sculpture and the art, for me, it’s the people of Bali, who are one of the most hospitable, warmest, kindest spiritual people that I know.”

He also collects sculptural busts.

“I’m obsessed with busts: European torsos, terra cotta, marble. I also collect paintings, from modern to classic,” said Rachman, who came to the U.S. as a foreign exchange student and “fell in love with the American style.”

The designer, who started out doing floral arrangements, has three pieces of timeless advice for anyone tackling a remodeling project, however large or small the budget.

First, don’t copy. “Know yourself. Everybody is different,” he said. “Don’t force any style, and don’t try to be anybody or do something because you saw it in a magazine.” Instead, draw from your own interests and tastes.

Don’t be afraid to play with scale. “A lot of people think when a room is small, you buy small things. I like to cheat the eyes with scale and sometimes put oversized furniture. It can make the room appear bigger.”

Finally, be brave, he said. Don’t get stuck in a miasma of white and beige just because it seems safe. Be adventurous with color. “It’s all in how you mix and match and have the confidence to do it.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com. OnTwitter @megmcconahey.