Design Du Jour

Combining vision with experience, a professional chef creates his home kitchen

Written by Mervyn Kaufman • Styled by Ruth Wells
Photographed by David Duncan Livingston

VIEW MORE PHOTOS Photo: David Duncan Livingston

Shag carpeting, a sunken living room, ceilings textured like cottage cheese— these eyesore hallmarks of 1970s design didn’t deter David Gingrass, who was confident he could turn this 1,500- square-foot house, in Napa, California, into something befitting modern times. David, chef-owner of the San Francisco restaurant Two, proved to be just as skillful in the workshop as he is at the range. Doing most of the renovation himself, he created a residence that more than meets his personal and professional needs.

Down came interior walls, as rooms were reordered and the place took on the characteristics of a contemporary ranch house: open spaces, large lightadmitting windows, easy outdoor access. David even removed closets, jettisoning a pantry and a space that had contained the washer/dryer. He says no pantry was needed; he never uses packaged or prepared foods. And he found a place for his laundry appliances in a corner of the attached garage.

David wanted his kitchen to be a kind of dining theater, a place to entertain as well as work. Two walls were removed, opening the space up to the foyer and the adjacent dining room. At 120 square feet, the new kitchen, he says, “is roughly the size of the old one and in the same general part of the house, but it bears no resemblance to what had been there before.”

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