Design Studio

refine your style

Explore a contemporary approach to home by minimizing distractions and emphasizing what matters most.

Edited by Alicia Kellogg

This article first appeared in Spring 2010 Su Casa

Heidi Steele
principal
Interior Design Services (IDS Santa Fe)
3600 Cerrillos Road, Suite 203, Santa Fe,
New Mexico, 505/820-2386, ids-santafe.com

Background: Heidi Steele’s interest in architecture and interior design started at an early age walking job sites with her father, who built every house her family lived in growing up. Steele studied environmental design at Syracuse University, where instruction on the philosophy of colors and environments inspired her to pursue creating deep emotional responses through her designs. She later studied architecture and interior design at the University of Tennessee, earning a bachelor of architecture degree. Steele went on to design for high-end hotels and resorts in Peru and across the southwestern United States.

Steele opened Interior Design Services in 2002. The firm designs for hotels, restaurants, homes, and educational institutions, with clients including Encantado resort and St. John’s College in Santa Fe. Residential projects represent a range of styles with an emphasis on contemporary design and crafting custom interiors imbued with personal meaning.

Personal design style: Clean, eclectic, and colorful, with an affinity for mixing periods. An underlying theme of graciousness encourages spaces that feel comfortable yet luxurious.

How do you define “contemporary” interior design?
I consider contemporary design to be a real exercise in editing. It’s not just about the interiors but about the architecture, as well, and the dialogue that happens between the two. In a contemporary setting, that would mean it’s highly edited dialogue so each element is able to have enough space around it to breathe and be noticed.

Within that concept, I would insert the owner’s personality. I think a contemporary interior can easily incorporate antiques or pieces that are more modern, more mid-century. It can be all-American, it can be Asian, or European.

How do you mesh a contemporary aesthetic with a Southwestern home?
I think we’re very fortunate here in the Southwest, where the homes—the traditional architecture, the style of the adobe, the Territorial, the Pueblo Revival—all lend themselves to contemporary because they tend to have such great detailing with vigas, latillas, hand-carved doors, beautiful windows, very simple volumes, and lots of natural materials. I think those are the basis for really wonderful contemporary projects.

What could you bring to a Southwestern style home to create a contemporary look?
I would say using a native color palette—one that is suited to that beautiful quality of light we have here in the desert, which you just don’t find other places. The desert light tends to change the colors more throughout the day.
It’s also about bringing in natural materials, whether that’s earth and plaster or native woods and local stone. I try to use as many local sources as possible for materials, as well as craftsmen. I’ve never lived anywhere with such a wealth of artisans. From the blacksmiths to the stonemasons to the woodworkers and the glass blowers, everything is at your fingertips.

Can these types of crafts work into a contemporary design?
Very easily, yes. I think bringing in those hand-wrought elements helps get people beyond the association between contemporary and a sterile environment. I think in the ’80s there was such a trend toward these extremely minimalist, no-detail interior and architectural schemes that it turned people away from contemporary. But I see the resurgence of contemporary and how it has evolved, especially in the Southwest, along with all of these craftsmen and artisans. It’s a matter of bringing the soulfulness, warmth, and character of these handmade pieces into the homes.

Why is contemporary design often associated with spaces lacking color?
It actually came from that whole Bauhaus movement and the International style. They were leaving everything behind about the Victorian era, and white was the absence of all color.

Some people still think of modern or contemporary architecture, and in their heads they get a picture of Philip Johnson’s Glass House or the Case Study homes. Things have changed. Contemporary design has come a long way.

How would you describe today’s contemporary design?
It’s much softer. More soulful. Very embracing, in a way—embracing of the interior and the exterior, especially in the Southwest. We have such a wonderful climate here that the homes tend to embrace the land they sit on, and the views are incredible.

Do you have to start with a contemporary style home to achieve a successful contemporary interior design?
No, not at all. I think you could take a home from any period and as long as you handle it in a contemporary sense, it can then become contemporary. As a matter of fact, some of the most beautiful contemporary projects I’ve seen are homes that are several hundred years old.

How do you give an older home a modern feel?
You tend to peel away any of the extraneous finishings and clean up the space so you’re dealing with a skeleton of the architecture. Then I think it’s all about selecting the elements of the architecture that have significance. That could be the windows—the openings and the views to the outside—or it could be 500-year-old beams, which have so much character; they’re effused with detail and patina and soul. It’s taking those focal points and quieting everything else around them so they become much more visually important.

How do you begin selecting furnishings?
I like to work with as many of a person’s sentimental belongings as I can. We’ll start with an inventory of what they have, weed out the most important objects, and save those. That will become the core or the foundation of our scheme. We will build out from there, adding the layers we need to make the home comfortable.

I have a lot of lengthy conversations with my clients getting to know them as much as possible so I know how they want to live. It’s an exploration for me, but it ends up being an exploration for them, as well, because they are moving out of what they know and what they are comfortable with into uncharted territories. It often spurs personal growth, actually, because they have to question themselves—what of my belongings do I really love, and why do I cherish them so? What isn’t important to me? Those are all things tied to where they are in their life. It can be a wonderful transition for people.

Does a contemporary project often involve minimizing what you have in your home?
It really can. I’ve seen other people approach it as we’re just getting rid of. It becomes a very negative experience because people feel that things are being stripped from them. The way I see it is you strip back to a certain level, and then you begin layering back on.

I had one client who had owned antiques stores and collected textiles and artwork from all over the world. When we first started, every surface had at least 10 layers—she had so many things in her home it was overstimulation to the eye. We eliminated probably 80 percent of what she owned. Some of it ended up in storage. A lot of it she gave away. But her comment to me was that she had never noticed how beautiful some of these things are, because now she can see them.

If you had one recommendation for our homes’ interior design, what would it be?
If you don’t love it, don’t buy it. I see so many people who fill their homes with certain things because they feel like they need them. They don’t like them, and they live with them for years, if not decades.

Can you give us an example?
I would say beds. Or dining sets. Major purchases. People will buy a whole dining set—the sideboard, the china cabinet, the table, all the chairs. And they don’t like them. But they feel they should have them. They’ll buy something, and they don’t really love it. I think that’s a shame.

How would you prefer we approach what we place in our homes?
Put a little more thought or effort into it. Know how much you interact with your surroundings on a daily basis and how important that is. It’s like surrounding yourself with frenemies versus surrounding yourself with people whom you truly love. Bad furniture is truly a frenemy. You need it to eat off of, but you hate to look at it.

What is your favorite interior design advice?
I think it’s so important that people take notice of how much of their life is shaped by the environment they occupy—home and work. Here in the U.S., we’ll take out a big loan to buy a fancy car that we’re going to have for three years. In Italy or in Spain, people will go into debt to buy a custom kitchen they will have for their whole lives. I don’t think people get the value of the spaces they’re surrounded by and how they can elevate your life on a daily basis.

Especially your home. A lot of times, you have very limited control over your work environment, and your work environment is the most stressful environment you’re going to be in over the course of your adult life. To be able to leave that behind and go home to a place that makes you feel good cannot be underestimated.