For their own design studio, Hommeboys Interiors founders Alex Mutter-Rottmayer and Austin Carrier chose to challenge the common stark office blueprint in favour of an interior scheme that is welcoming, warm and more reminiscent of a home.
The space was designed to showcase a curated range of the materials and ideas that the studio delivers to clients in its luxury residential projects. With the concept of studio-as-showroom embedded in the design, the duo layered the space with multiple materials, establishing it as a gallery of natural beauty for clients to explore. The architectural star of the space – which was named best office in the 2024 California Home+Design Awards – is the striking curved staircase, hand-trowelled in Venetian plaster and grounded by our Arbon limestone.
The space is, above all, calm, with movement introduced through a material palette of warm and tactile surfaces: lime plaster walls, richly grained wenge cabinets, a Taj Mahal quartzite desk and benchtops, Verdigris hardware and lighting, and Arbon limestone flooring. The uniting thread of this materiality – particularly the Arbon limestone – is that it promises to grow more complex over time. “We knew that Arbon would age and continue to patina beautifully. We elected not to seal the product for this very reason and we love to see the differences in how it is changing,” says Austin.
“We knew that the Arbon flooring would age and continue to patina beautifully. We elected not to seal the product for this very reason.”
With their tumbled finish, the Arbon floors already feel as though they have been there forever, as ancient and abiding as the landscape. “It is important to us that our designs are both timeless and innovative. We are drawn to rich, warm colours that reflect the natural world, which is one of our greatest inspirations. The tumbled finish is well suited to the landscape surrounding our studio, a pastoral Sonoma property.”
