Entertainment Tonight

By Leilani Labong
Photography by David Duncan Livingston

In a twist on a classic Cinderella story, Dr. W. Scott Harkonen’s 1934 English Tudor “castle” in San Francisco’s historic St. Francis Wood neighborhood would turn into a pumpkin at midnight, as one of his legendary parties wrapped up. That’s what used to happen when Harkonen, a bachelor with a magnificent 5,000-square-foot home (but no comfortable seating to speak of) hosted a gala-scale event: The trucked-in glitz and glam got packed up before the last guests said their goodbyes. But now the tale has changed.



“Scott lived in that house for more than 10 years, but before I came along, all he had was a frumpy old sofa,” says San Francisco interior designer Lawanna Cathleen Endonino, of Lawanna Cathleen Design. “Event planners would come in and transform the space for an evening, but then it would snap back to nothing in a blink.” Harkonen, a biotech CEO, has a different take on the former state of his home: The beige palette that Endonino describes as “drab,” he calls “natural and graceful—a tribute to the woodwork.” But, he admits, “it definitely was in need of an update.” Harkonen, a divorced father of two college-age kids, hired Endonino a year ago on the advice of his female friends. “Women would tell me that I really needed to get some style and energy in the house,” says Harkonen. “That’s when I asked Lawanna to have a look.”

Much to Endonino’s surprise, the challenge of the project was not the size of the space itself. The sprawling manor had, as she says, “great flow and interesting architectural details.” She also had no difficulty concocting a vision—“Scott wanted the home to feel masculine, but also be a place where women would feel comfortable.” Even the project’s six-month hiatus due to a ruptured Achilles tendon that left Harkonen wheelchair-bound and confined to the first floor of the house was not the biggest hurdle.



The most difficult obstacle by far, says Endonino, was convincing Harkonen that wallpaper and window treatments were essential for the cozy, timeless environment he was seeking. The haberdashery-inspired pleated-fabric wallpaper by Maya Romanoff and the copper-hued Larsen window panels from Cowtan & Tout—each costing a hefty sum in their own right—required a leap of faith. “I told him to trust me,” says Endonino. “It took some convincing—he just couldn’t visualize wallpaper in the living room or window treatments that weren’t woven blinds.”

Endonino chose an autumnal color palette—from the rich chocolate-brown velvet club chairs and the deep orange silk pillows in the living room to the gold wallpaper panels on the dining room ceiling—in a nod to the home’s dark Tudor architecture. She also added several pieces to Harkonen’s substantial art collection: In the living room, an earth-toned abstract landscape by Santa Barbara artist Julie B. Montgomery makes a dramatic backdrop for a shiny silver bar cart. A grid-patterned canvas by Belgian painter Marc Lambrechts in the dining room turned out to be the perfect complement to the Barbara Barry rug beneath a Holly Hunt Cipangu table.



In the kitchen, where Harkonen preferred a sleeker, more contemporary look in order to play up the stainless steel appliances and Carrara marble countertops, Endonino used charcoal-hued exterior paint on the walls. “The color I used made the veins in the marble and the texture in the abstract artwork pop.” A marble-topped Saarinen pedestal table and Tulip chairs from Design Within Reach complete the modern scene.

“Scott’s changing view on design is almost as dramatic as the home’s transformation,” says Endonino, who is ready for the project’s next phase: redesigning the private quarters. “He went from being really hesitant about change to loving the process of beautifying his home—now he’s even reading design magazines!”

--

Featured homeowner Scott Harkonen hosted a dinner party in celebration of the coinciding holiday season and the publication of this feature story “Entertainment Tonight” in the December issue of California Home + Design.
See pictures from the event.