Portrait of Home : Mission Bay
Carolyn has always been drawn to designers who create entire worlds. Karl Lagerfeld with his retrofuturist Paris apartment. Martin Margiela with his quiet and all-white precision. Their work shaped how she thinks about space, not just as something to decorate, but as something to express with. A home, for her, can hold a point of view.
Her living room is layered, sculptural, and slightly surreal. It is a space that plays with material and form. There is an aviator dining table, a Ligne Roset coffee table, and a Verner Panton chair, a console built from cinderblocks and a tufting frame she and her partner Colin assembled together along with a pair of ceramic ducks, design objects made from urushi lacquer by her friend Shogo, that sit nearby. Every piece was chosen slowly and intentionally. Some were sourced from local artisans and vintage shops in San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Paris. Others were found during late night scrolls through Facebook Marketplace. She gravitates toward objects that carry weight and presence and that make you pause. For her, arranging a space is a way to hold on to emotion, memory, and atmosphere. She is drawn to contrast, where the luxurious meets the makeshift, the sculptural meets the improvised, the refined meets the raw.
The home reflects the same impulse. It is shaped by what she has gathered, the people she cares about, and the kind of life she wants to live. It offers a quiet record of how she sees the world, what she chooses to keep close, and what she continues to create.
In her office, five silver shelves hold fragments of her life. There are paintings she has made, books she has loved, menus from memorable meals, and gifts from people who know her well. One shelf holds a ceramic piece she picked out with her father, showing bunnies sleeping inside pea pods. Another displays a photo from the day she presented the app she designed for the NBA and Apple Vision Pro to Tim Cook and Adam Silver. This year, she set a quiet goal to make one painting each month. The completed works rest across the shelves and explore light, shape, and stillness. In recent months, windows have started to appear as a theme in her work. They suggest entry points, moments of pause, and the feeling of still time. Two miniature stained glass panels now sit on an easel nearby, catching whatever light the room gives them.
