Lights, Color, Action
June 5, 2014
A coupleâs bold use of color and art in combination with subtle lighting creates an eye-popping Providence loft space thatâs anything but minimalist.
Text by Jill Harrington   Photography by Stacy Kunstel   Produced by Stacy Kunstel
New Yearâs Eve, 2005. Tripp Evans and Ed Cabral spend their first night in their new home at the Pearl Street Lofts near Providenceâs trendy Armory District with just an air mattress, a boombox and a disco ball.
That was likely the last time the space was quite so spare.
Step inside today and be struck by colorsâhot pinks, golds, aquaâart-covered walls, layers of dĂŠcor, a sense of whimsy. Sure, it has traditional loft features: amazing twenty-foot ceilings, exposed brick and vents, oversize original windows and a pedigreed industrial history as a foundry, laundry company and most recently, a furniture showroom. But this is loft living in double time.
The Providence architectural firm Durkee, Brown, Viveiros and Werenfels got this party started, restoring the nineteenth-century complex to its industrial roots. In Evans and Cabralâs loft, that included removing a wall that had obscured the beautiful arched windows and adding a spiral staircase up to a revamped space above the loft that was once an elevator override system. âWe essentially removed years of âupgrading,ââ says Michael Viveiros, lead architect on the project. âWe try to expose as much of the original building as possible and celebrate what there is about it thatâs industrial.â
This was the sleek but blank slate Evans and Cabral encountered when they stopped by on a friendâs recommendation. The price, the location, an extensive private rooftop terraceâall they were seeking came together here. âWe were combining two homes into one but didnât want something that looked like where either of us had been. This felt like a new adventure,â says Evans.
And an adventure it has been, this 1,700-square-foot loft they have made distinctly their own, blending their lives and possessions with a healthy dose of fun. âItâs hard to say what we are, style-wise,â says Evans. âWhat we arenât is minimalists. We are maximalists!â
They began their design odyssey by breaking up the wide-open expanses, adding salvaged architectural columns to give shape to the large space that now comprises the living room, sitting area and dining room. Evans, a professor of art history at Wheaton College who studied architecture at the University of Virginia, built some of the interior architecture himself, including both a pergola that further separates the dining and living areas and a hallway bookshelf to house some of his more than 6,000 books.
Today the large living area has been divided into two, more intimate sitting areas, with leather chairs and a Mitchell Gold suede ottoman resting under the bright light let in by the arched windowsâa perfect place to perch and take in the surroundings.
They commissioned an artist friend to add Âintricate molding to the wall dividing the hallway from the bedroom. The wall is embellished with a reissued geometric David Hicks wallpaper from Cole and Son to create a headboard of sorts. âItâs like a stage set. Itâs the suggestion of a traditional bedroom,â says Evans.
The duo hired lighting designer Barbara Kristiansenâa move Evans says was key to cozying up the loft. She brought the lighting closer to eye level, replacing planned pendant lighting in the kitchen with lamps on the counter, taking a page from small, intimate bars, says Evans. In the hall, Kristiansen created what she called a âbarrel vaultâ of seven-foot-high continuous arcs with little bulbs at the ends. It makes the sixteen-by-three-foot hall seem âless like the bottom of a well and created a wonderful kind of architectural âceilingâ of light,â says Evans of his favorite lighting treatment.
With the bones and lighting in place, Evans could focus on his other trademark: unabashed use of color and art. Where some might fear to tread, Evans marches bravely.
Take, for instance, the dining room, where Bubble Gum Pink, a sculpture by Kik Williams, prompted the parade of pink in the loft. Then came the flocked pink Mao bust and the Warhol reproductions. âWe pick up colors from our artwork rather than the reverse,â Evans says. Pink and lime green Flor carpet tiles Âenliven the dining room floor. âIâm a child of the â80s,â jokes Evans. A midcentury sectional from an old Miami hotel sports bright pink pillows on its creamy leather seats. Even a nearby Frank Lloyd Wright reproduction lamp has a spot of pink.
The shade pops up again in the kitchen, with stripes of Fetish by C2 surrounded by expanses of curry yellow and dark brown.
The Indian palette is a favorite of Evans. âI used to be worried it [bright pink] was too much, until a friend from India said âOh, but itâs the navy blue of Calcutta, my dear,ââ Evans says, laughing.
Says co-collaborator Cabral, âTripp has an amazing sense of color. He puts colors together that normally would never seem right, but work.â
Cutting the color calvacade is Evansâs slightly surprising other love, the absence of colorâblack. He points to the ceilings throughout the loft and the spiral staircase, both of which they had painted black, and the pièce de rĂŠsistance in the kitchen: a giant silhouette of a chandelier inspired by a Jean Orlebeke Âdesign that Evans first traced onto the wall, then painted. âEvery room should have some black,â Evans says.
If the flocked Mao isnât enough of a clue, the pairâs sense of humor Âinfuses the space. Evans collects small doors, one of which sits at the far end of the hallway, a stretch that seems all the longer thanks to the three-foot aqua door. âIâve had the Alice in Wonderland fixation for a while,â says Evans. âI really like surprising scale. Itâs so big in here, itâs easy to play with juxtaposition of scale.â
And the opulent hall bath, with its gold-leaf walls, has an inside joke at its rootâa nod to an East Berlin hotel the couple stayed in a few years ago that had Westernized in an over-the-top way. âTheyâd gilded everythingâeven the toilet and lid,â recalls Evans.
The other story here is the copious amount of art on display. Evans estimates that they have around eighty pieces gracing the walls at any given time, rotating new pieces in frequently. Most of them are works by their talented friends, says Evans, including two large abstracts by Laurel Sparks, one of which is currently on loan to the DeCordova Museum in Massachusetts.
The space combines humor with a sentimental tinge, industrial edge with comfortable chic. âWe both like to mix styles and have never liked the âmatchy-matchâ look,â says Cabral. âSo bringing all our things together worked well for us.â
âWe want it to be accessible and fun,â adds Evans. âAnd we love every square inch in hereâit all reminds us of our friends and family.â â˘
Architecture: Durkee, Brown, Viveiros and Werenfels Architects
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