JCC Designer Showhouse: The Cook’s Library

How to make a small interior space special enough to coax the cook out of the kitchen?

It wasn’t just the fact that it was a make-shift laundry room. With four doorways and a number of conflicting vertical and horizontal jogs, the previous space was simply unattractive, uncomfortable and uninviting.

And although the mansion sits 20 feet from the sea wall, the windows in this room face north.

The design objective for this project was to transform an uninviting pass-through room into a space worthy of its ocean-front address. What could be more exclusive than The Cook’s Library? An elegant retreat just off the kitchen, it is close by activity but also private -- the perfect place for planning the next holiday party or intimate family dinner.

To achieve the transformation, we first constructed a coffered ceiling to unify the angled surfaces and take advantage of the 9’ ceiling height. The custom-built book. case wall adds a purposeful reference point. A four-wall, Susan Harter mural on canvas creates a continuous point of interest. And finally, we stocked the shelves with cookbooks, most lent by friends.

In sum, we created the illusion of a larger, far more sophisticated space, without changing the physical dimensions of the space itself.