When interior designer Ken Fulk begins working with a new client, he asks them to fill out a form called Fulkfessional with questions to help them understand what's most important to them in a home. His favorite question these days is “Damn house or smart house?” The answer is everything.
Philanthropist Christine Schantz knew exactly what she wanted from her 1925 historic home in Marin County. She commissioned Fulk (and architect Andrew Scalman) to create a mansion that would last her 30 years without renovating. All the smart products that are trending these days have gone out the window, including automated light fixtures, complex lighting systems, remote-controlled appliances, charging stations, electronic security systems, and everyone's favorite Alexa. Schantz wanted her family's retreat, not SpaceX's headquarters. “Technology doesn't support that,” she says.
Homeowners like Schantz aren't die-hard technophobes. They want fewer remote controls, equipment, and wires in their personal space, and they rely on decorators, architects, and contractors to build them a stupid, if not stupid, home. Masu. Perhaps not coincidentally, this trend has found favor among the most cutting-edge groups. Call them the unassuming Luddites of Silicon Valley.
“Many of my clients who work in the technology world tend to avoid advanced housing because they are acutely aware of change,” Fulk says. What they want, he added, is an environment that ages well without frequent, onerous updates.
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Modern Dumb House Design Rules: Keep traditional kitchen appliances out of sight and focus on bold colors, such as bright areas of robin's egg blue. All fixtures and cabinet hardware are from Nanz Company. Rule: Use old-fashioned cooking utensils. It's very old. A collection of Staub enameled cast iron pots and frying pans. The pendant light is from Studio Van den Akker.
Step inside an anti-smart house like Schantz's seen here and you'll find eye candy steeped in handiwork that feels closer to the past than the future. There's artisanal woodwork, intricate plasterwork, and light switches that look like old-fashioned brass toggles. . The doorbell is manual (“a Victorian hand-crank that I bought myself,” Schantz says), bookshelves are stuffed with hardcovers, and family knick-knacks and photos are relegated to the attic or uploaded to an iPad. It is thoughtfully displayed.
“We often hear from customers that they don't want a home that's smarter than theirs,” says design legend Holly Hunt. “It's obvious that being in control of your home while on vacation is appealing, but what happens if something goes wrong while you're halfway around the world and you can't contact tech support?”
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Rules: Create a low-tech look with custom wallpaper featuring some of Ken Falk's favorite real and fictional titles executed in the powder room and a custom marble, wood and leather vanity by Merritt Woodwork. Take it to the next level. Book details.
The idea of a smart home goes back decades. In pop culture, everything from Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory to John Lautner's 1960 Los Angeles mansion Chemosphere (an inspiration for The Jetsons and long-time film backdrop), and more recently his 2014 film Ex Machina It is depicted everywhere. In Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973), a health food store owner is cryogenically frozen and thawed 200 years later in a glass house full of robots designed by Charles Deaton. In the real world, the first general purpose home automation network technology called X10 was introduced in his 1975 year.
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The living room features a Silvio Piatelli chandelier, a Simu Walkov Ceramics table lamp, and a Coup Deta Chesterfield sofa.
Microsoft's 1999 “Home of the Future” promotional video imagined middle-class homes with seamless voice-activated integrated lighting, heating, security, and entertainment systems. By 2012, this ad became a reality. In the United States, 1.5 million home automation systems were installed, and by 2020, the industry's value reached $44 billion, according to data firm ABI Research.
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Rule: No TV, Alexa, or electronic devices in the bedroom. And keep the lighting simple. The chandelier is from Fabio LTD and the reading pendant is from Allied Maker. Rule: Prefer neutral elements: fresh flowers and forest wallpaper, here created by Cole & Sons. The rattan nightstand is by Portuguese design studio Emotional Brands.
For at least some people, the transition away from an overly digitalized home has been a long time coming, first spurred by increased awareness of the health risks of too much screen time, then followed by the shift away from work life during the pandemic. Accelerated by deterioration of balance. The rise of artificial intelligence is a recent cause for concern.
“People I've worked with in the technology industry don't want their children to have technology,” she says. Ronnie Paul, the designer who removed it, says: her customers. New York interior designer Erin Ritchie also chose devices for her home, choosing elements that emphasize tranquility over notifications. She doesn't have a camera, Alexa, or Google Assistant.
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In the master bedroom, the wallpaper is by Saint Laurent by de Gournay, the ceiling fixture is by Fortuny, the antique desk is by Joseph Hoffmann lamps by Voca Lamps, and the lamps on the nightstands are by Lorenza Bozzoli of Tato Italia.
“Like home cameras, we don't like the idea that devices are constantly watching us,” she says. This is an urgent concern for homeowners at a time when big tech companies are testing ambient intelligence, a concept futurists have been discussing for years. Ambient intelligence is the concept that smart devices make their own decisions based on everything from biometric sensors to predictive behavioral modeling.
“Just because something works doesn't mean it's a good idea,” Fulk says. “When you get home, especially when you get back to the beach house or the ski slope, the last thing you want to do is wrestle with technology.” In modern, boring homes, it usually starts with the TV and then things like light switches. Only fragments of technology are hidden, down to the smallest details. “Whenever I redo a house, I can tell when it was built in his 2000s, because it was in the middle where they were trying to make it progressive but still felt very clunky.” says designer David Coe. More and more clients in Los Angeles are asking us to keep their entertainment consoles out of sight. His solutions are OG projectors, built-in custom furniture, and products like his The Frame from Samsung that makes your TV screen look like a work of art.
“There's nothing extravagant about technology anymore,” says Stephanie Roy Heckle, a designer who works primarily in Miami and the Hamptons. What's more, it's beautiful. The Roomba may be practical, but chic isn't the first word that comes to mind to describe it.
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The entry features artwork by Jack Wright and Charles Bianchini, a 19th-century gueridon with marble top, millwork by Merritt Woodwork, and a doorway designed by Theodore Ellison.
Even if so-called dumb houses are not defined by a single aesthetic, they all represent a broader recalibration of homeowners' relationship with technology. Interest in the latest gadgets is waning, and demand for sensible innovation is increasing, especially in the areas of sustainability, green architecture and solar power. “There's a huge conversation in California about gas appliances and their impact on the environment and our health,” Fulk said. Although it was a priority for Schantz, her at-home digital detox was driven by a much simpler personal belief.
“I also think technology has desensitized us,” she says. “It makes us forget things that are meaningful and permanent. It shortens our attention spans horribly.” There is something you will never have: your soul.
Lead image: The menorah and library lighting are from Obsolete, a Culver City dealer. The Astrology ceiling mural was inspired by the famous mural in Munich's Villastuck and was created by craftsman Willem Racke. First editions and rare books line the bookshelves, and the backs are decorated with wallpaper of Zack and Fox and laquette decorations. The CH20 elbow chair is the work of Hans Wegner. Artisan Factory is by Merritt Woodwork.
This article appears in the April 2024 issue of Town & Country with the headline “Welcome to Dam House.”Subscribe now
Kristen Bateman is a contributing editor at Harper's Bazaar. Her first fashion article was during her senior year of high school when she was published in Vogue Italia. Since then, she has interned and contributed to WWD, Glamour, Lucky, iD, Marie Claire, and more. She creates and writes the #ChicEats column and covers fashion and culture for Bazaar. When she's not writing, she's checking out the latest runway collections, dying her hair to suit her mood, and practicing her Italian so she can shop Prada at her 90% off Tuscan outlet doing. She loves vintage shopping, desserts, and cats.