Designer David Naylor designed an ultra-modern home filled with history and soul, wisely sidestepping the idea that contemporary spaces are cold and uninviting, and bringing life into this home.

How David Naylor Pairs Rare Finds with Sleek Architecture

It starts with an empty room. David Naylor of David Naylor Interiors spends time in the space and eventually, “…you sort of get feelings of what this could be and then you have to draw that up and see how you can actualize that, how you can take it from idea and inspiration, to the actual room itself.”

For an ultra-contemporary Santa Fe home, that meant layering older pieces – ones with history that bear the mark of the maker – into a sleek interior. The resulting space is serene and contemplative, a place that is both imminently liveable and perfectly considered.

Timeless Design in the Master Bedroom

Take the master bedroom. Your eye is drawn to three framed tribal works from Papua New Guinea. Naylor found them in a local shop, worn and frayed. They were restored and framed with museum mounts, so these treasures are now preserved as they should be. Matched with African pieces, Chinese pots, Tibetan rugs, “all cohabiting very peacefully in this one room,” he says. Clever moves like storage that wraps around the headboard blend the aesthetically pleasing with the practical.

Naylor says that unlike some other designers working in contemporary homes, he eagerly embraces the juxtapositions he can achieve by marrying the old with the new. They add texture and history he says, and take what could be a cold gallery-like space and make it a home. “If your fantasy is to live in an art gallery, you’ve achieved that. But what’s really great with old wooden pieces is that something special happens when they’re in a contemporary environment.”

How rooms flow one into another is critical to Naylor. Like the points – windows and doorways – when we come into contact with the outside world. Next to one large single-paned window are three teak balls, carved in Naylor’s studio. They bear reminders both of the man-made as well as the natural world and serve to draw your eye outdoors. “You’re on the inside and it’s more man-made. But the outside you don’t touch, but you try to marry, find a bride for it.”

A Peaceful Santa Fe Dining Room

Nature appears in the dining room as well, a cozy circular space. Naylor decided against fighting the gentle curve of nichos and instead accentuated them. Rather than filling them with two-dimensional art and destroying the curve, he instead had them painted as ‘landscapes.’ “We tried to make them look like an extension of the landscape but not being so predictable as an actual landscape. We just did the textural colors of a blue sky and earth for the ground.” The result is harmonious, peaceful, and engaging. “It was very copacetic,” he says.

The curves of the dining room are carried over into the living room – a traditional square space where he opted for a rounded sofa. “When we draw a floor plan,” he says, “we’ll do the conventional two sofas, console behind, coffee table, and pair of chairs on the diagonal. But I always like to throw in a curve option. It gets them thinking and invariably, the clients always go for it. It’s a little unconventional but it always wins the show.”

Blending Art, Function, and Character Into the Interior

It’s a home of quiet details and juxtapositions like a pool table placed front and center in the living room “It’s a lovely pool table and the younger kids in the family like to shoot pool, so we didn’t want to bury it in the basement where no one sees them anymore,” he says. A structural hammered-iron fireplace surround is softened by two Japanese pieces that hang on either side of the fireplace.

Dining room chairs are laced up with leather and adorned with coral, turquoise, silver, and Tibetan beads – taking something practical and giving it beauty and life.

Naylor uses found pieces as well as pulling from his own collection (“I’m kind of a high-end hoarder. But if I can’t find it, or know I can’t find it, we have work rooms where we can make it.”)

The result is a home that no matter how contemporary, feels grounded in its space and is in a way timeless. It’s a place to entertain and to pause: a place to call home.

About the Author

Julia Platt Leonard is Regional Editor for TABLE Magazine’s New Mexico edition, covering Santa Fe’s food, shopping, and community scene. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, she has worked as a pastry chef, food consultant, and television reporter, and is co-founder of the Santa Fe International Literary Festival. She is the author of the novel Cold Case (Simon & Schuster) and has written for publications including The Independent. Reach her at julia@tablemagazine.com.

Photos by Kate Russel

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