The house came with a name: Pinch Me. To the Seattle-based couple who acquired the beachside cottage for weekend getaways to Carmel, California, it seemed all too fitting. After all, the house felt magical—as if a fairy-tale version of a Cotswolds cottage had been deposited on the sands of one of the world’s prettiest coasts—and they could hardly believe their luck.
Built as a beach bungalow in the 1950s, the primely situated house underwent a storybook cottage–style makeover in the ‘80s; its current owners hired Bambick to pare back the flourishes while still nodding to Carmel’s famous “Fairy Tale” architecture.
Tim Lenz“We had lived in the Bay Area twenty years ago when our children were very young, and we used to drive to Carmel for day trips with them,” says the wife, an educator and nonprofit founder. “We always loved looking at all the adorable homes, and we would dream about the people who got to live in such a stunningly beautiful setting.”
Those memories meant they were intent on keeping as much of the house’s storybook charm as possible. The problem? They were modernists, and they couldn’t quite wrap their arms around the 1980s nautical pastiche of seahorses and rose-adorned stained-glass windows that filled the house when they purchased it. Unsure of how to maintain the fantasy while doing away with the kitsch, they reached out to John Bambick. The young designer had been instrumental during the renovation of their Seattle home four years earlier, but he had since moved to New York, and they worried he might not be interested in a job on the opposite coast.
In a small house (“the rooms are almost at three-quarter scale,” says Bambick) that is always full of visiting family and friends, the challenge was programming the spaces and fitting in plenty of furniture without feeling crowded. Everything is low-slung, compact, and comfortable, including the custom linen-slipcovered Belgian-style sofa (with pillows in Jennifer Shorto and Le Gracieux fabrics), sheepskin-covered chair and footstool by Flemming Lassen, and a coffee table made from 18th-century chestnut by Atelier Demiurge. Midcentury French and Italian lighting fits the scale of the room.
Tim LenzAs it turned out, the project materialized at the perfect pinch-me moment for Bambick, who was on the brink of striking out on his own. He plunged right in, digging deep into the history of Carmel-by-the-Sea—its establishment as an artists and writers’ colony in the early 1900s, the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement in its early development, and the Hugh Comstock–designed “Fairy Tale” cottages that sprang up in the 1920s and ’30s.
“The objective was to create a space that is traditional but extremely simplified,” explains Bambick. The pewter pendant from Roman and Williams Guild echoes the curve of the eyebrow window to its left.
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The kitchen exudes calm with minimal ornamentation, with cabinets painted in Little Falls from Benjamin Moore, a blue laced with soothing gray undertones. Bambick mixed metals including a vintage brass faucet from Waterworks and bronze hardware from Nanz.
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“How do you make a powder room feel like you went for it while keeping it very peaceful and serene?” Bambick solved his own riddle with a floating vanity made of honed Calacatta Fantastico marble. “It’s so simple, just three elements—brass, marble, and wood paneling—yet it feels special.” Waterworks faucet, pendant from Lumfardo Luminaires.
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Surprisingly, Pinch Me wasn’t among those original cottages—in fact, it was built as a simple beach bungalow in the 1950s; many of the exterior flourishes, from the teetering brick chimneys to the heart-carved balustrades, were added some 30 years later. “The structure was what I like to call ‘faux historic,’” says Bambick, who set about creating a new narrative for the home. “I felt like I was staging an intervention on kooky 1980s whimsicality.” He stripped and restained the hand-hewn wood timbers in a darker hue, and restored the stucco with a more authentic finish. An iron fence was replaced with a classic wood grape-stake version that blends in beautifully. “I didn’t want to change the house, I just wanted to make the architecture stronger,” Bambick notes.
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A honed marble dado wraps around the dressing room; the brass light switches from Forbes & Lomax add extra patina. The black wax finish of the Hardware Renaissance iron door handle is repeated throughout the house.
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A concealed jib door opens to a shipshape cabin containing a Devon & Devon commode that appears to float, thanks to oak paneling stained to match the solid oak seat.
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Inside, he filled the rooms with the sorts of details that would have defined one of the original Cotswolds-style homes: extra-wide wood paneling to evoke redwood-clad walls, period-appropriate plaster that goes right to the floor—there’s not an inch of trim in sight. “This is a traditional house, but the clients like cleaner lines, so we executed things in a simplified way,” says the designer. “I was inspired by Belgian designers who keep their tool kit tight: The walls are all white, the windows and doors all have the same hardware, and the faucets are all brass. There’s a consistency that serves as a backdrop for some of the more romantic details, like kick pleats on the sofa.”
Bambick also astutely avoided any overt at-the-seashore tropes. “The house is already themed in a way—besides, if you look out the window, you know exactly where you are,” he says. He took a subtle approach to building coastal character, employing materials like seagrass, linen, and wool that speak to the natural beauty of the place and reflect the ever-changing ocean with a layered palette of blues, greens, and metals.
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Bambick outfitted a pair of guest bedrooms overlooking the garden with identical Jenni Kayne linen-upholstered beds, using textiles to create individual identity. Here, short curtains in Mutka silk from Soane feel sweet surrounding a tiny window, which is flanked by a sculptural oak bedside table designed by Bambick. A vintage Mexican Otomi embroidered textile from Tancredi & Morgen is layered over a linen coverlet from John Derian.
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“This is one of the darker areas of the house, so we leaned into a moodier palette,” says Bambick of the adjoining guest room, which features floor-sweeping curtains in a teal de Le Cuona striped linen. The Claremont fabric pillows pick up on the rich ocher hues of the John Derian bedcover and the blue-green Sandra Jordan blanket. The dresser is by Made Goods
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The assemblage of lighting and furniture, meanwhile, appears as if collected over time since the 1930s. “It brings in modern design that feels lived in, with some patina and some historical context,” says the designer. “That’s why introducing 1950s Italian wall sconces felt appropriate—they’re modern, but at this point, they’re 70 years old.” The vintage pieces also had the advantage of suiting the elfin scale of the rooms: The ceiling in the den doesn’t come close to touching eight feet.
And that brings us back to our tale, which made client and designer alike feel like Goldilocks, each finding a just-right ending in one singular—and now very serene—house.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 14 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
