In the San Joaquin Valley
Enhancing a Modesto House for Exuberant Collectors
When Judy and Stephen Endsley first saw the rambling house in a
tree-shaded neighborhood, they both liked its size-for different
reasons. For Stephen Endsley, it was the place where he could finally
display his many and varied collections. For his wife, the house
meant that their children would have plenty of space to play, inside
and out.
Stephen Endsley, a cardiologist in the small city of Modesto in
the San Joaquin Valley, is a compulsive collector, apt to buy seventeen
hundred Native American arrowheads on a whim. He also collects old
clocks, books, bells, duck decoys and guns, including three cannons.
His truest love is African art, a romance that started eight years
ago when Judy Endsley brought home a carved animal head. He has
been collecting ever since, concentrating mainly on sculpture and
traditional ceremonial objects from central and West Africa, buying
from visiting traders as well as shops and galleries throughout
California.
Judy Endsley says, "I would have been perfectly happy with
just three things, but my husband gets carried away." If they
differ on quantity, they agree on the qualities they love about
these objects. "There's a sense of their makers' respect for
their ancestors. Living with these things gives you something of
their inner life," she says.
Children and collectors are often considered incompatible, but the
Endsleys were insistent that they didn't want a house filled with
imaginary Don't Touch signs. Instead of museum-style displays or
restricted rooms, they wanted their young son and daughter to live
intimately and comfortably with beautiful and unusual art forms.
Judy Endsley told Modesto decorators and furniture designers Craig
Leavitt and Stephen Weaver, "Do whatever you have to do to
make it livable."
The designers' first challenge was the difficult floor plan, in
which the rooms marched along in a line, each one on a different
level. The house had been further splintered by the installation
of interior fishponds surmounted by small bridges. Leavitt and Weaver
covered the ponds, razed the bridges and began to create spaces
that were both elegant and youthful. Wherever possible, they pared
down and simplified. Pale herringbone-patterned wood floors replaced
thick carpeting, moldings were stripped away, and every window was
given a fresh, uncluttered look with either shutters or neatly tailored
silk shades. A palette of calm, neutral colors, such as camel and
pewter, was chosen as background for the owners' extensive collections
and some furniture designed by Weaver and Leavitt.
Although the linear floor plan and soaring windows ensure that there
is plenty of light in every room, it's a mixed blessing in the San
Joaquin Valley, where temperatures rise above one hundred degrees
during the long growing season. The subdued color scheme, aided
by a thick canopy of trees outside, creates the sense of a cool,
dim retreat from the sun.
Two pyramidal etageres flanking the front door introduce visitors
to the owners' fascination with ancient and primitive cultures.
Porcelain and bronze Fo dogs from China, masks and circumcision
belts form Cameroon, flame-shaped wooden finials salvaged from an
1803 courthouse in Pennsylvania and giant antique narwhal tusks
coexist in harmony. Pyramidal shaped are repeated by Leavitt and
Weaver's gold-leafed tripod lamps and small inverted-pyramid side
tables, as well as by a triangular arrangement of nineteenth-century
hand-colored views of Egypt, matted in snakeskin-patterned suede.
Even in the more formal areas, the owners insisted on fabrics and
furnishings that were luxurious but durable enough to resist the
wear and tear of young children. Typical is the smooth calfskin
used on upholstered furniture throughout the house; it look fragile,
but it's the same leather used in Rolls-Royce automobiles.
The equilibrium between family life and beautiful objects has been
perfectly realized in the room the owners call Africa, the permanent
home of most of the Endsleys' African Art collection. Leavitt and
Weaver had comfort and sociability in mind when they designed modular
sofas and covered them in a nearly indestructible woolen fabric.
Low bookcases and built-in cabinets provide display space for art
objects.
All around, animal and human figures crouch, stare, grimace and
bare their teeth in friendly fashion. One feels free to examine
them closely, perhaps to touch and even smell the objects, many
of which have been used on ceremonial occasions. "This is a
house where everything is touchable," Judy Endsley insists.
Of course, no one appreciates the installation of these treasures
more than Stephen Endsley. "We're prisoners of the collections,"
he says, and he still has more to add. "Don't worry, Stephen,"
Leavitt told him recently, "I've got some ideas about displaying
those arrowheads." |
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