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Tour a Striking All-Black Home in San Francisco
On the night the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010, Alison and Bruce Damonte headed out to tour a house that was for sale. As prospective first-time homeowners, they were still getting a feel for the market but were thrilled to find a home they both loved in Bernal Heights. “The city was just exploding with a celebration that night,” says Alison, an interior designer. (Bruce is an architectural photographer.) “I remember we were in the basement, and you could hear fireworks and horns blaring. We felt like it was good we were looking then because everyone else was distracted by the World Series!”
The couple, who was drawn to the house’s layout, original wood, and character, made their purchase one week later. Thrilled to have found a home in their price range that they could move into right away, they planned to tackle much-needed renovations over time. “It had some of the charms of an older house, but didn’t feel so claustrophobic,” Alison recalls. “We knew it was a great home.”
The Damontes ultimately enlisted Casper and Lexie Mork-Ulnes of Mork-Ulnes Architects, who are their close friends, to handle the remodel. Seven years later, in 2017, they were finally ready to get the ball rolling. “We had submitted our final plans to the city to do a whole renovation,” Alison says. But on Christmas morning of that year, the Damontes was jerked awake by the smell of smoke. Their home was engulfed in flames.
“One of [the neighbor’s] motorcycles blew up and caught fire,” Bruce explains. “It was very traumatic, but we feel fortunate [it wasn’t even worse].” At the time, Casper recalls, “We were close to getting the permits, which, in major cities, can take a year, or years. Lexie and I were in Italy for Christmas, and I got this text message from them about the fire. We felt awful. We’d been working on the project with them for many years, through budgets and changes in their careers. It [had already been] a long process.”
And yet, out of the ashes, positivities emerged. “We like to call the house The Silver Lining House,” Alison says. “Not only because of the silver references throughout the home, in chrome and metallics, but also because while this horrible thing happened, we couldn’t have landed in a better [position].”
In a way, the blaze also presented new opportunities to rethink their initial effort. “We charged ahead into a new version of the home,” Lexie recalls. Although dealing with the insurance claims and permitting became stressful at times, the city worked to help move things along due to the situation.
Design-wise, Alison’s philosophy is “maximal minimalism,” as she puts it, or a warmer approach to modernism that strikes the balance between capturing clean lines and avoiding a sense of sterility. Thanks in large part to their professions, both members of the couple had a strong point of view in terms of what their home should look like. The Damontes are avid collectors and shoppers, who love to travel to see design projects. While in Milan, for example, they found themselves inspired by postmodernist elements, which helped inform part of the thinking behind their decor. “Aesthetically…things have room to breathe,” Bruce says of their home. “It’s very clean, and the details are very neat. But then we have these monumental, brightly colored things.”
The couple isn’t afraid of saturation, often opting for bold, vibrant hues in unexpected places. Brimming with carefully curated pieces of art and unique patterns, the home is designed with intention, care, and most of all, joy. There is also meaning behind almost every piece. “It’s very personal from the standpoint of our passions, but also [in terms of us] wanting to incorporate experiences, friendships, and memories,” Bruce explains. “We don’t want a table that we just found in a catalog. We want something we discovered together in a cool way or something that a friend made.” Otherwise, Bruce adds, it feels like “a missed opportunity.”
