Spring 2011 Design Partner Feature: Hensel Design Studios

We have the privilege of collaborating with many of the Pacific Northwest’s most celebrated architects and designers. Perhaps none is more celebrated than Steven Hensel and Hensel Design Studios based in Seattle, who just recently won the prestigious Seattle Homes & Lifestyles Publisher’s Choice Award in partnership with Seattle Design Center’s Northwest Design Awards. The Northwest Design Awards, Seattle Design Center’s annual design competition, rewards design excellence in 10 categories. Continuing a tradition started last year, Seattle Homes & Lifestyles annually presents a Publisher’s Choice Award to one of the first-place-winning projects. Essentially, this award is for the best of the best, and Hensel Design Studios won for their “Wildbird” project in Big Sur, California.

Steven Hensel of Hensel Design Studios creates contemporary interiors through an artist’s eye. Trained as a fine artist, Steven has founded several companies including Artex Designs textiles and Studio Steel furniture, architectural details, and artworks – all represented nationwide. In 1996, Steven consolidated his companies into one entity, Hensel Design Studios, providing interior design services to its clients.

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Steven Hensel refers to this award winning project as a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience. The “Wildbird” home is perched 600 feet above the Pacific Ocean and actually cantilevers out on a perilous isthmus with spectacular views, crashing waves beneath it and ever present condors circling the property. Originally built in the late ’50s for Nathanial Owings of Skidmore Owings and Merrill fame, the home had fallen into disrepair and was in desperate need of updating. The new owner had purchased the property as a birthday present for his wife, and hired Hensel Design Studios to bring this unique property a more modern aesthetic. Working closely with the architects, Fletcher/Hardoin of Monterrey, Steven and his team felt it was clear that the modernist designs needed to speak to the original architecture while playing a secondary roll to the magnificent setting. This goal was accomplished and exceeded through excellent choices of finishes and textures as well as custom furniture design by Hensel Design Studios to respect the history of the space while providing comfort.

One challenge of the project was a long and potentially boring entry wall. Fortunately, Steven had a plan. “I had experimented with Glassworks unique abilities before at Daniels Broiler on Lake Union and several residential projects with great success,” explains Steven. “I created a design that would incorporate copper details that needed to be precisely located in the crushed glass to coordinate with other architectural elements as well as the lighting designer’s method to illuminate the artwork.” Glassworks took this design and created the standout feature wall from cast low-iron glass. “This was a daunting task of very tight tolerances and precise details that could have gone wrong in a myriad of ways,” Steven continues. “Glassworks excelled at every level – my design was delivered just as I conceived it. Their engineering, teamwork, implementation and quality control were exemplary. They even loaded it on their own truck, drove it down the coast and installed it for me!”

Looking ahead, Hensel Design Studios is taking the buzz and excitement the Wildbird project generated and applying it to an amazing five acre site on the shores of Lake Tahoe. The owners have seen the glass feature wall, and Hensel hopes to include architectural art glass in this new two-year design project. Hensel Design Studios is also about to install a small compound in central Oregon that is evocative of the Greene & Greene style and then a beach house on Whidbey Island. “This has been a great time for my studio in spite of the economy, we’ve yet to slow down,” says Steven. It is always an honor to work with such talented designers and we wish Steven Hensel and his team continued success.