Mixing it Up. Designer Jay Jeffers

Who’s for mix­ing Regency with ran­dom Mid-Century?

We are.

Over these past few years, with our entire staff in a drool over the work of the likes of Kelly Wearstler and her prob­a­ble influ­encer Dorothy Draper, we at HighStreet have found that for quick inspi­ra­tion, noth­ing beats impact. The cam­era loves it too. It encour­ages us to be bold and it teaches us the impor­tance of artis­tic statement.

Enter Jay Jeffers, an American designer that cre­ates visual impact and exem­pli­fies the cleverly-mixed “London style” that at HighStreet we live to seek: A deliv­erer of eye candy that doesn’t seem to push it past the point of liv­abil­ity, which makes the designs all-the-more appeal­ing as we are then able to imag­ine our­selves actu­ally liv­ing in the strik­ing scenes he’s concocted.

Like many of our free-spirited, forward-thinking con­tem­po­raries, Jay loves strong pat­tern. He also works in the busi­ness of mod­ern glam­our how­ever, there is a slight folksi­ness that brings his designs back to earth, again, let­ting us know that a Jay-Jeffers’ lifestyle is totally plausible.

Initially influ­enced by the grandeur of his­toric Southern homes, Jeffers seems now drawn to mix­ing the state­li­ness of pat­tern with the approach­a­bil­ity of ran­dom antiques. Steering inten­tion­ally clear of what he deems an overuse of iconic fur­nish­ings, he curates a mix of bold pat­tern, fan­ci­ful color, tran­si­tional, clas­sic fur­nish­ings and whim­si­cal acces­sories to its most com­fort­able point. The care­fully color-balanced designs are grounded and yet allow for an ele­ment of fan­tasy. The effect is that the spaces uplift your spirit and cre­ate a lit­tle hap­pi­ness. Now what more can you ask for in an oth­er­wise com­plex world?

Jeffers’ work with a young, social cou­ple, pro­fes­sional skate­boarder Reese Forbes and his wife Shawn is a shin­ing exam­ple of this approach. The unfor­get­table brown and white wall-paper trav­el­ing through the house lay­ered with extra­or­di­nary and col­or­ful things is a smart mod­ern show­stop­per that most any­one can appreciate.

We’re also drawn to his work for “Dining by Design” and the lovely enclosed porch he designed for the House & Garden, Hampton Showhouse, with it’s 1930’s and 40’s French and Italian wrought iron fur­nish­ings set against sim­ple sisals, lit up with bright flo­rals and smoothed by linen.

In his own words Jeffers says of his life in design “Designing a home is one of life’s most inspir­ing expe­ri­ences. It’s an oppor­tu­nity to allow our­selves to dream and explore, to play with color, tex­ture, space and light.”

Jay Jeffers is a not only bay area favorite. He is quickly becom­ing a media dar­ling of the design world. His San Francisco stu­dio can be found at the www.jeffersdesigngroup.com

Leah Spurrier. HighStreet