Darryl Carter ✦ D.C. Townhouse

Darryl Carter's D.C. Townhouse

The designer's minimalist style delivers maximum impact

Designed by Darryl Carter
Written by Mitchell Owens
Photographed by Simon Upton
Produced By Anita Sarsidi
Published by Elle Decor

Decorator and furniture designer Darryl Carter at his Washington, D.C., townhouse with Otis, his German shorthaired pointer.

A wall relief by Margaret Boozer and a 19th-century grand piano in the living room.

Reclaimed Belgian shutters from Added Oomph! and an 18th-century Regency table in the living room; the polished-poured-cement cocktail tables are by Boozer, the circa-1920 sofa is upholstered in an Edelman leather, and the sisal is by Stark Carpet.

The library’s wing chair served as the inspiration for the Wesex wing chair by Darryl Carter for Thomasville; the Carlton House desk is antique, the shutters and chandelier are from Allison’s Adam & Eve, and the mantel was designed by Carter.

An antique Italian étagère in the kitchen; the wine refrigerator is by Sub-Zero, and the range and hood are by Viking.

The kitchen features custom-made cabinetry and granite countertops.

The dining room’s concrete table by Bevara Design House is flanked by Carter-designed chairs upholstered in an Edelman leather; the gilt mirror is antique.

The breakfast room’s bookcases were the model for the Van Dorn cabinet by Darryl Carter for Thomasville; the light fixture is 19th century, and the floor is French limestone.

Architectural fragments are displayed in front of a pair of bathtubs salvaged from the Russian embassy; the shutters were designed by Carter, and the secretary is 18th century.

A porter chair and Carter-designed desk in the master bedroom; a bronze sculpture sits atop a vintage Parsons table, and the convex mirror is 19th century.

In the master bedroom, antique bordello doors behind the bed.

The vanity in the master bath was adapted from a 20th-century server.

In a guest room, a wing chair from Vilnis & Co. Antiques is upholstered in a Manuel Canovas fabric; the wall color is by Benjamin Moore, and the rug is from Timothy Paul Carpets + Textiles.

The limestone façade of the Beaux Arts townhouse on Embassy Row.




Darryl Carter's D.C. Townhouse

The designer's minimalist style delivers maximum impact

Designed by Darryl Carter
Written by Mitchell Owens
Photographed by Simon Upton
Produced By Anita Sarsidi
Published by Elle Decor

For some people, their residences become richer as time passes and accumulations mount. Washington, D.C.–based decorator and furniture designer Darryl Carter has a different definition of environmental luxury: Less is more.

“Everything here is getting sparer and sparer, and the juxtapositions are becoming increasingly confident,” Carter says of his townhouse, an elegant limestone Beaux Arts building on Embassy Row dating from 1910 and once the chancery of the sultanate of Oman. The contents of its rooms have been cut nearly in half in the past several years, while the subtle textures the decorator has always employed have given way to an even more refined aesthetic. The bright colors he formerly embraced in his art collection—among the most notable was a dramatic lemon-yellow painting presiding over one wall of the dining room—are now replaced with muted shades that match the rest of the house’s palette, mainly biscuit, linen, and palest gray, all offset with dark accents and fields of chalk-white.

“A person’s taste evolves, and changing my own houses is one of the pleasures of my job,” says Carter, author of The New Traditional: Reinvent-Balance-Define Your Home (Clarkson Potter, 2008). Here the resulting look—serenely unified, strong and uncompromising—is reminiscent of the gutsy style of fashion designer Bill Blass, who, after living for years in sumptuous spaces, began eliminating the extraneous and treating furniture and accessories as sculpture. Carter’s merciless campaign of simplification can be seen from the lofty foyer (where a modernist cement chair stands next to a plain Louis XVI table) to the master bath (where two stark-white tubs salvaged from the nearby Russian embassy sit side by side in the company of a towering 18th-century secretary). And as far as he is concerned, it’s not over yet. “The next time you see this place it will be white walls and absolutely nothing else!” the corporate lawyer turned designer jokes. “But it will be beautiful.”

In fact, the five-story residence backing onto historic Rock Creek Park can be examined as an object lesson in how unsentimental editing can yield captivating interiors and heightened sensuality. By erasing folderol and cooling the chromatic temperature, Carter has shifted the focus of his rooms from merely pleasing to deeply soulful. Having fewer visual distractions means less-appreciated elements come to the forefront: the grain of a walnut veneer, the line of a desk, the profile of a bronze sculpture, the weave of a sisal rug. With this decorative philosophy in play, the designer’s comment about confident juxtapositions becomes crystal clear.

Carter had his upholsterer remove the faded covering on the headboard and footboard of a guest room’s Louis XV–style bed to expose the worn burlap beneath, creating a compelling contrast between the rough textile and the curvaceous framework. In the master bedroom, antique animal horns hang adjacent to a leather-clad cockfighting chair, and a zebra skin stretches beneath a Carter-designed desk; in other rooms, the windows are dressed not with curtains but with raised-panel shutters that look like ancient double doors. And the living room’s 1920s white leather sofa sits behind a pair of low asymmetrical cocktail tables that are actually rectangular slabs of poured polished cement made for Carter by one of his favorite local artists, Margaret Boozer. “They look uncomplicated, but the tables are an engineering marvel,” the designer says, plainly delighted with the results of the commission.

His decision to embrace calm, cool hues throughout the house is a valuable lesson too. It allows for honing one’s eye, making it easier to gravitate to a more exclusive array of furnishings and objects. “I can wax on and on about the utility of a neutral palette,” says Carter, who has always had a yen for no-color decor, even though not all of his clients share that passion. “It’s particularly helpful for people starting out with their first apartment or house. You can move things from room to room more easily.”

A case in point is one of the designer’s pride and joys: an 18th-century English secretary whose age-crackled veneer gives it the appearance of tortoiseshell. Initially placed in the living room, it quickly migrated to the master bath, which shares the same muted shade with every other space in the house. “I enjoy the secretary just as much there, and it has lots of utility,” Carter says. “It’s a great holder of stuff—mail, stationery, my iPod, whatever.” He adds with a laugh, “Junk is actually everywhere in this house. It’s OCD on the surface, but there’s disorganization and clutter behind every drawer front and door.” Which may present some problems when Carter ultimately goes completely minimal. Until then, he says, “I’m a good hider.”