Belle Epoque

Sheldon gave her clients a bohemian book- and art-filled home, which they have dubbed "Bell Cottage" in homage to the cable car that provides a melodic backdrop to their lives.

Some houses come alive in the daytime, as if animated by the sun’s rays. This earthquake cottage in San Francisco’s Russian Hill, however, is not one of those places. “This is a nighttime house,” says April Sheldon, a San Francisco–based residential interior designer (and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill veteran) who transformed the gutted cottage into a lush bohemian retreat awash with color. “Because it’s landlocked, with windows just at the front and back, we found ways to make it sparkle—especially at night.”

That suits the home’s owners, Linda Harrison and Ellen Anderson, just fine, because they too thrive after dark. The couple entertains frequently, hosting everything from intimate dinners to fundraising parties for a passel of nonprofits. Longtime veterans of the corporate world, the women also share a far less buttoned-down side. Ten years ago, they left New York City and traded in their 401(k)s to open an antiquarian bookstore in Hayes Valley—a gathering place along the lines of Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Years later, they launched their own realty group, Harrison Team, within Sotheby’s International.


The vestibule announces the salon-like atmosphere: the photograph is by John Casado and the painting is by Lordan Bunch. The 20th-century French Deco stools are covered in zebra-printed cowhide; The living room feels larger thanks to a wall of aged mirror.


Sunbrella cabana fabric veils the entrance; owners Ellen Anderson (left) and Linda Harrison.

Five years ago, after purchasing the sadly neglected Edwardian cottage on Russell Street in Russian Hill, Anderson and Harrison knew they’d come home for good. In its scale, architecture and quiet history, the neighborhood exudes a European feeling. And like many side streets in San Francisco, Russell Street (once home to Jack Kerouac) is a semi-hidden gem. The couple had initially engaged another designer to help with the remodel, but his vision of a clean white box outfitted with few ornamental appointments left them cold. So the couple’s contractor, Mike Austin of Siena Pacific, stepped in to play matchmaker. “April just instantly understood us, and she guided us to something we love,” says Anderson.

Although austerity wasn’t what they craved, neither was some shabby-chic recreation of Victorian life. “They kept using the phrase ‘urban cottage’ and talking about Italy and France,” says Sheldon. “So I envisioned a sophisticated Parisian flat infused with dramatic whimsy.” Layering eras and styles, Sheldon also echoed some of the exterior architecture’s period details, such as the dentil molding, indoors. “Linda and Ellen are such expressive people,” says Sheldon. “I felt I had license to let my design be a full-blown expression of who they are.”


Sheldon refinished her clients’ dining table in a robin’s-egg blue that matches the faces of the monkeys painted on the Venetian plaster walls.