9 Houses 9 Stories | John Ike
Intro: Welcome to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book, hosted by Suzy Chase from her dining room table in New York City. Join Suzy for conversations about the latest and greatest interior design books with the authors who wrote them.
John Ike: I'm John Ike. My latest book is 9 Houses 9 Stories.
Suzy Chase: I have to start with the cover. Let me ask you about the choice of chartreuse for the cover. That's the name of the color, right?
John Ike: Yeah, that's what I would describe it as. Maybe the lettering is Vermilion.
Suzy Chase: You don't have a home prominently displayed on the cover either. I'd love to hear about the design decision.
John Ike: I obviously love architecture, I'm an architect, but I do love interiors as well, and furniture and interior architecture, so I thought it was best to put something really provocative in terms of an image on the front. Stairs are super architectural, and so that was a decision for that. Honestly, the whole book was pretty easy to do. The cover was probably the most difficult to get something that the publisher liked and I felt represented the work in the book, and so we went through a couple of iterations and really ended up with that.
Then the coloring was really... When I do an architectural project, I always think in terms of precedence and different kind of inspirations, and the methodology for us designing a house has always been to assemble a bunch of sources and then the individuality comes with the integration of these different sources. Same thing with designing a book. I found a bunch of books that I love and used them as inspiration. This cover in particular owes a lot to a fairly recent Alex Katz monograph, sort of the architectural equivalent of that.
Suzy Chase: The book represents nine recent projects. It celebrates the bond between the architect and those who implement the vision. Now, what was it like to narrow the book down to only nine houses?
John Ike: A lot of it happened organically. Until probably two months away from press, it was 10 houses, 10 stories. Then one of the owners of the house got cold feet and was publicity shy. When I had actually started the book, I'd thought that I might be self-publishing. Then a good friend of mine who is in the book business, both from a publishing point of view and on the bookstore, said, "You really have to get a real publisher because this work is good and it should see the light of day, and I'm concerned if you self-publish, you'll really be doing yourself a disservice." That owner who made it go from 10 to 9 had actually liked the self-publishing, liked the limited run, and felt nervous when it may have greater exposure, and so they dropped out.
There had been other projects that had been considered, and most of them fell by the wayside because of owner's concerns of publicity, which is a real normal thing in architects' and designers' lives. You have a lot of clients who want to remain anonymous or basically not show their hand, and so that was really one of the factors that determined it being nine. Then, fortuitously, nine is an interesting number basically from an architectural point of view, a nine square plan, it's like a perfect Palladian plan. Then, I think, in numerology, nine has fairly significant meanings as well, but it was really nothing so orchestrated.
Suzy Chase: It was interesting to me that your involvement in these nine projects was different from mentor to principal architect and designer. In each chapter you focus the attention on a person who was instrumental in realizing the project. Talk a little bit about that.
John Ike: I've always liked having partners, and then builders are incredibly important and craftspeople and of course clients. There are just a myriad of relationships in architecture, as in most fields, but particularly in architecture, you're really orchestrating an entire symphony of collaborators.
Suzy Chase: This book pays respect to your work, and it marks the official end to your 34 year run of Ike Kligerman Barkley since you've split into three successor firms. Tell me a little bit about your new venture, Ike Baker Velten.
John Ike: We formed an office in San Francisco in 2008 basically as a result of getting a really nice job out there with some clients, and then they dragged us in and forced us on Stanford University to do a building there. But they said the caveat is you have to open an office. So we opened an office in 2008, basically continued working there and would run jobs in Hawaii and Colorado out of that as well as local California jobs. In the process, we really got some great people and Carl joined, can't remember whether it was 10 or 12 years ago, and then Tyler Velten probably in the last 8 years. They were instrumental in really operating that office, finding work, executing the work. We're all like-minded, so when Tom and I decided to split, it made perfect sense, bring these guys in. Carl's almost 50 and Tyler's in his late 30s or early 40s, and they're super competent people and we worked well together. It just seemed right to share this new experience with them.
Suzy Chase: This book wouldn't be possible without the stunning, stunning photographs. With your projects, did you always have photographers on hand to document the process? How did that work?
John Ike: Yeah. That's something I learned from Bob Stern. He always recorded all of his work with great photographers, and for the longest time he used Peter Aaron. We learned that you always photograph, and we always owned our own photography. Over the years, it becomes quite a collection. But more than that, you just learn the power of photography because, especially with houses, the number of people who get to see them are really few and far between, and so you're really dependent on the quality of the photography to convey the essence of what you've designed there.
Equally important, and we learned this in later years, was styling. We worked quite a bit with Anita Sarsidi, who has a background in editorial, and wasn't really trained as one, but just has a fantastic eye. She can interpret what the camera sees and stage the photographs in such a way that they are the most powerful they can be. There were others, Philip Davies, and I can't remember her name from California, Franzen was her last name.
Suzy Chase: Nicole.
John Ike: Nicole Franzen. Yeah.
Suzy Chase: Yep.
John Ike: Then I have to really give a shoutout to Mary Shanahan who was the book designer, who was a art director at Rolling Stone from the late '70s until, I don't know, the early '90s. She just has an incredible sensibility and just so easy to work with and just a natural. With Mitch Owen's writing, I had a fantastic team, which is the same way you put together a building.
Suzy Chase: To speak to the power of photography, some of these photos just depict texture, like the closeup of tile or the chandelier or, with Tyler's house, there's a tightly zoomed in shot of a beam, I think with windows, and it's close to the ceiling. It's very artistic. But you get a feeling of the entire place.
John Ike: That's why details are absolutely key to evoking the quality of a place.
Suzy Chase: One of my favorite projects in the book is Oddfellows Hall in Brooklin, Maine on page 119. Robert A. Baird wrote the forward for this project. I would love for you to talk a little bit about him and your relationship.
John Ike: I've known Robert since the 1980s. He is from Salt Lake City. His father was a prominent architect in Salt Lake, and one of his... Aside from doing a number of churches for the Mormon Church, they were involved in the restoration of a cast iron building in downtown Salt Lake City. They were in on the ground floor of cast iron, and so when soho when New York started to pop, they were one of the first ones called.
Long and short, Robert actually started out working for the Department of Historic Preservation. His area of expertise was maritime architecture and actually boats. He bought a house in the '90s in Brooklin, Maine and moved there. I had actually been to Brooklin for the first time in the '70s, early '70s when I did an Outward Bound thing at Hurricane Island, and was pretty familiar with that part of Maine. Then we started vacationing up there, and when I was in college, we'd go camping. The Oddfellows Hall would had been sitting in neglect, it was owned by a guy from New York who used it as martial arts studio, been on the market for a while. I'd said to Robert, "Somebody should buy that and fix it up." And he said, "Well, why don't you?" And I said, "Are you kidding?"
The price was, it was a great price. So I decided to do it. Then I said, "I'm not doing this alone. As usual, I need partners." So we talked to Steve White, who is the grandson of EB White, who was the mainstay of Brooklin. His son Joel started a wooden boat shop in the '60s or '50s, and Steve grew up through it. We dragged him into the deal, and then Robert joined.
We each took a floor and Steve used the ground floor, which was a former shop and post office, and he made it into a boutique boat shop. Then mine was the ceremonial hall on the top floor. We did minimal restoration, and then I parked my collection of mid-century Italian furniture in there. Basically, it's an Airbnb now. Robert did the same on the second floor, which was more of a community center with a stage. Everybody who grew up in Brooklin from the '20s on went to a dance there or something like that.
We basically each did our own thing, but collectively we get along great, it's a super cool restoration, and Robert ended up doing all the construction on the restoration, which was not insignificant. There are now modern buildings with insulation and plumbing and electricity, but retain a lot of the old finishes. All the windows were restored, so they're all old windows. It's a collaborative restoration effort. Robert says it spurred some development along the street between there and the little downtown, which may have happened on its own during this buildup over the past 10 years, but it set an example. We won awards from the state for preservation.
Suzy Chase: You mentioned that it's an Airbnb now. So we can stay there?
John Ike: Yep. You can rent it. Yep. Yep.
Suzy Chase: I love it. Where can we find you on the web and social media?
John Ike: Our website is ikebakervelten.com, and there are links to everything there, so we're there.
Suzy Chase: That's good. Well, I adore this book and I cannot thank you enough for coming on Decorating by the Book podcast.
John Ike: Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure and I love what you're doing. Thanks.
Outro: Follow Decorating by the Book on Instagram, and thanks for listening to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book.
