By Chad Jones - STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
One of the distinctive things about interior designer Jeanette Patterson is that, unlike some designers, she will not impose her taste upon her clients. She may have excellent taste, but if you don't, she's willing to work around that.
Amy Zinman has worked with Patterson on an Oakland home and now on an Oakland townhouse that has, as Zinman puts it, been "suffering deferred maintenance for 14 years." "Jeanette is very respectful of other people's taste," Zinman says. "In a couple of cases she let me go down the road of my own taste, then watched as I came around to her taste. It turned out she was right in the first place."
Another client, Piedmont's Marsha Wasserman, had Patterson help her turn a junk room off the master bedroom into the library it was originally intended to be. After four not-so-great experiences with designers in the past, Wasserman and her husband were wary. "My husband said he wanted to be in on every decision, so Jeanette and I had to explain to him what valances and dust ruffles were," Wasserman explains. "He didn't want to trust anybody else to make the decisions. Then, about a month ago, he said, `I really trust her decision-making and her taste. Why don't we let her go with it?' I think Jeanette was thrilled to hear that."
Both Wasserman and Zinman found Patterson through her Montclair Village store, PsHome, a 6,000-square-foot store stuffed with furniture, tableware, linens and Patterson's good taste. The 39-year-old Patterson has had the store for three years, and before that, she had a smaller space on College Avenue. According to Essence magazine, Patterson's interior decoration store is one of only two owned by African-American women in California.
A Berkeley native, Patterson was a straight-A student with a flair for design. She was voted best dressed at Oakland's Skyline High School, but practicality won out over passion when she began her study of merchandising - more business-like than fashion design - at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in Los Angeles. She transferred to the entrepreneur program at the University of Southern California, and got a taste of interior design when, to help cover living costs while she was at school, she began selling art and making visits to people's homes.
"I had a lot of opinions about everything in the homes I visited, and people seemed to like my opinions," Patterson says in her office at the back of her showroom. "Silly them. I hadn't really had any formal interior design training, but then again interior design and fashion are one big continuum in my head."
About 10 years ago, after her first marriage ended in divorce, Patterson found herself a single mom with the desire to start a business. With some interior design classes at Chabot College under her belt, Patterson began doing design work while working as a substitute in the Oakland public schools teaching French, English, math and gym. When she won a bid to design the Joaquin Miller Community Center, her small design firm, Sanderson Design, was on the map. Famous clients soon followed, among them two basketball stars: Patterson designed a Pleasanton home for Jason Kidd and a Blackhawk home for Gary Payton.
She opened her first PsHome showroom in 1996 and has busy ever since. Early on in her career, Patterson says, being a black woman had some disadvantages. "There was a certain attitude like, `How can she know what I want?' because I was young and I was black," Patterson says. "Black people are perceived as having a culture but they're not perceived as cultured." Those attitudes are mostly behind her, but you won't find Patterson, an attractive woman, using her photograph in advertisements. "I don't want to be defined by being black," she says. "If people see your picture, some won't want you because they don't think you could know their taste. But then some black people won't want you because they figure if they're going to spend the money, they want a white designer."
Patterson, who balances her successful business with second husband Dante, 13-year-old son Donrick and 5-year-old son Cameron, says she wants to be judged on her talents. Her expanding base of black, white, Jewish, gay, young and old clients attests to those talents.
Walking through the PsHome showroom, Patterson points to an almost tropical-looking bedroom display with a rattan-like headboard, deep red bed linens and antique mirrors on the wall. "The Tommy Bahama look is really in right now," Patterson says. "The island feel is popular but with both a retro-1950s feel along with more traditional British Colonial touches. And red is really big, I think, because in feng shui, red is a fire color and supposedly creates good chi, or energy."
With a personal style she defines as "clean, classic, not trendy, serene and eclectic," Patterson says she keeps on top of or ahead of trends by reading more than 15 magazines a month ranging from House Beautiful to Veranda to House & Garden. She also goes to all the major trade shows including the twice-yearly shows in High Point, N.C.
Though she says her major strength is in pulling together many elements for a single, distinctive look, Patterson says she is proud of the way she works within clients' budgets. "I guess I treat their money like my own," she says. "And I spend my money wisely. I work with wealthy clients and everyday working people. The one thing they have in common is the need to stick to a budget. I can do that."
Patterson points to a mod-looking lamp with four clear acrylic globes stacked at the base. At design shows, lamps like this can run between $500 and $1,000. Patterson found a version she is able to sell for just under $200. "I have an eye for good design, but my goal is to find that design in the most affordable way possible," she says. "That takes longer because you have to be more selective. I wish the magazines were clearer about what rooms cost so when clients come in and point to a picture, they have more realistic idea of what they're asking for."
Client Zinman, whose latest decorating project is being done, she says, on a "shoestring," says Patterson's budget consciousness and good taste made for an unbeatable combination. "Jeanette doesn't try to press her advantage," Zinman says. "She is really concerned about budgets. That's important. Plus, I just like her on a personal level. She's a really good human being. She doesn't fit the designer stereotype at all."
You can e-mail Chad Jones at cjones@angnewspapers.com or call (925) 416-4853.