Atherton home selected as ASID Designer Showcase

By Michelle Giluso,

Three Los Altos-based interior designers will demonstrate their artistic flair during the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Designer Showcase, Thursdays through Sundays, Sept. 11 through Oct. 5.

This year’s California Peninsula Chapter and Creative Habitat’s Designer Showcase features a 13,000-square-foot Tudor-style estate home in Atherton.

ASID member Linda Newton of Linda Newton and Associates and Palo Alto-based Shirley Lo Designs partnered to design a modern 21st century home office for the showcase.

“My company’s work is mostly in corporate facilities; so that, coupled with a desire to participate in this ASID activity, suggested an office,” said Newton, a Los Altos resident for 25 years. “We enjoy keeping up with the latest technology as well as demographic trends, so we set that as our theme.”

Newton said the design shows how business products can mesh with home comforts to create a pleasing and efficient room.

The office not only represents new technology and ways to use it, but also is designed for the entire family, said the interior designer, who has been practicing decorative creations for about 27 years.

“I love the children’s corner with its own desk and bulletin/white-boards,” Newton said. “Children can play or do their homework while parents work.”

The Los Altos-based interior design firm, Miller Stein, decorated the family room in the Atherton estate. ASID members Marcia Miller, Steven Stein and Janice Marcus created features to focus on the garden view.

“We wanted to pull in garden colors to keep the room light and airy,” said Miller, who has participated in four previous ASID showcases and brings 20 years of interior design experience to the project. “We used luxurious, yet practical, fabrics to enhance the old-world architectural style of the house.”

Miller described the room as “elegant and luxurious, but also very comfortable and welcoming.

“We love the soft billowy very-simple draperies that look like sheer silk, but are actually a synthetic-microfiber fabric,” Miller said.

ASID member Barry Johnson, and his Los Altos residential design firm, Barry Johnson Design, furnished the sitting room, pantry, bathroom and patio off the kitchen.

Johnson, with about 20 years of interior design experience, made the rooms casual so people can relax watching a plasma television on comfortable seating or hangout at the game table.

Newton said the designer showcase is an opportunity to offer the public “eye candy, new ideas for their homes and access to highly qualified persons to assist with changes they are anticipating.

“I would expect that everyone who attends this showcase will walk away with something they intend to add or implement in their house,” she said. “This is an opportunity to see many different ideas and solutions.”

The Atherton home is located at 1 Ridgeview Drive.

Tickets are $30 in advance; $35 at the door and nonrefundable.

For more information, call Joseph Hittinger at 468-9090 or logon to www.asidcap.org.