Moving into a new place can be a transformative experience, but figuring out how to make multiple empty rooms feel like home is often more daunting than it is exciting. And if you’re graduating from renting to buying, the idea of making long-term design decisions can feel especially overwhelming. How do you get the soul of an old home without a degree in DIY?
Enter Lennar. The nation’s largest home builder recently transformed 750 acres of the historic San Francisco Shipyard into 12,000 brand new homes, one of the biggest urban transformations in SF history. Located between Bayview Hunters Point and Candlestick Park, this piece of land dates all the way back to the 1860s, and has strong roots in everything from the civil rights movement to World War 2. Today, it’s home to SF’s oldest opera house, a thriving art scene, and more than a few food trucks.
In order to bring that old soul into these new interiors, they called on Laurel & Wolf. We transformed two of their model homes, Thayer and Alma, from empty boxes into lived-in spaces. “I wanted to create a space that felt collected and curated, rather than designed and put together all at once. I wanted it to feel personal, without it feeling too one size fits all,” says the lead interior designer, James Tabb.
The biggest challenge in designing these model homes? How to make them feel personal and lived in without being generic. “Model homes aren’t usually designed to evoke a feeling, emotion, or make a connection with anyone. I wanted to appeal to a new generation of home buyers who want something more unique than a house-in-a-box situation.”
When it comes to his inspiration, James designed the model units with Lennar’s potential home buyers in mind. “It’s great for millennials and people who like to collect things. The design can’t always be perfect and that’s part of the inspiration. It needed to be slighting imperfect,” says James.
While both of the model homes are stylistically similar, Thayer was meant to feel more vintage eclectic with old suitcases, found objects and a worn-in rug, while Alma has more of a coastal modern look with nautical stripes and driftwood decor.
Home buyers inspired by the new designs are in luck. Lennar is gifting a free interior design package to everyone that purchases a new home at the SF Shipyard. Your very own slice of the Bay Area plus a personalized design to match? That’s what we call a sweet deal.
For more information on this new development, click here.
Photography by Dustin Walker, Design by James Tabb.
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