Tech tycoons and startup savants may deck out their offices with funky standing desks, beanbag chairs, foosball tables and the gadgets of tomorrow. But when it comes to decorating their homes, they’re into simple function over high-flying flair.
“Computer programming is all about efficiency and ease of use,” explains designer Dan Fink, who counts Paypal co-founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin and Facebook’s Chris Hughes among his clients.
“Silicon Valley is about figuring out how to do things better. That’s very much on their minds when it comes to designing and using their houses.”
This means, above all, an emphasis on comfort — the interior-design equivalent of tech’s ubiquitous hoodie. “They want spaces to be livable” rather than intimidating, says Ken Fulk, who’s designed homes for the founders of Yelp, Zynga and Bebo as well as the famously fantastical “Lord of the Rings”-themed wedding for billionaire Sean Parker. “That’s the mandate: Nothing is precious.”
(Except, perhaps, the nondisclosure agreements. “I’ve never signed so many NDAs in my life,” says SF-based interior designer Kendall Wilkinson. “Which is kind of funny, because these are the folks who made privacy a thing of the past.”)
Fittingly, tech innovators often embrace midcentury and industrial furnishings, says Noa Santos, co-founder of home-design startup Homepolish. “It’s the marriage of form and function” — something tech innovators can relate to.
But that’s not to say there isn’t room for playful experimentation. Fulk has created a slide descending from the back door to the yard of a techie’s San Francisco Gold Coast home, as well as disco light shows that drop from the ceilings of otherwise staid living rooms.
“They’re not afraid to have that mix,” the designer notes. “There’s a fearlessness to that.”
The digirati also put their hobbies on full display.Wilkinson created a sculptural wine cellar on a stair landing for an executive at a restaurant-booking app, commissioned designer Dakota Jackson to make a custom blue-lacquered piano for a musically inclined entrepreneur, and had a private pool and yoga studio installed in the home of an amateur triathlete who works for a search site.
“There’s a lot of flexibility and fun,” confirms Bay Area-based Lauren Geremia, who’s decorated homes for Facebookers and Googlers as well as the offices for Instagram and Dropbox. “It’s not as serious as design used to be.” She works with artists and designers to create standout installations, like a fireplace mirror covered with photos, by artist Guillermo R. Gudiño, for a renovated Victorian in SF.
Meanwhile, New York-based Casey DeBois’ DeBois Design has created homes for the founders of Rent the Runway, BarkBox and Blue Apron. She complements works by emerging artists — like photographer Gray Malin or graphic wiz Baron Von Fancy — with bespoke commissions.
Surprisingly, famous founders often eschew smart-home bells and whistles and complicated built-in gadgetry.
“People who want that aren’t tech folks,” says Fulk, who opened a New York studio in May and is currently handling techsters’ homes in Gramercy and the West Village.
“These founders don’t get why you’d build static tech into a house. Other clients want it because they think it’s impressive, but these guys know the technology can change.”
Ultimately, Fulk concludes, these clients are “innovators of how we live, not just of technology. You see that in their homes and their parties. They’re unconstrained by convention, but they’re also truly driven — not by ego, but by curiosity, and by a desire to share extraordinary experiences with others.”
