Visionary Spaces
San Clemente Sanctuary: Erin Brown’s Renovation in the Spanish Village by the Sea
The designer took inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright and the Brizo®
portfolio to renovate her #ProjectSoCalCasa.
Eighteen years ago, interior designer Erin Brown and her husband Mike, a retired NFL player, moved to the “Spanish Village by the Sea:” San Clemente, California. The city’s coastal climate set a gorgeous scene decorated by Spanish Colonial Revival architecture; terra-cotta clay, white stucco walls, and carved wooden doors brought a classic charm. They built a life and family in the city’s suburbs. But Brown longed to be closer to the sea.
San Clemente, CA, 2022 / Kella Photography
And so, in 2019, the couple found their ideal coastal home: a box cottage built in 1958 and renovated in 1990. When she first walked through its doors, Brown thought the house felt oddly familiar—almost as if she’d been there before. Immediately, she saw an opportunity to design a home that paid homage to the land and community while reflecting her family’s story.
Despite its more personal nature, Brown approached her family’s home renovation much as she would any other design project. She brought her professional skill, creativity, and design ethos to every aspect.
“I really looked at my family as if they were my clients.”
“My brief is always going to be marrying form and function as harmoniously as possible to get our family as many elevated design elements as we can while maximizing the amount of storage,” Brown says. “I really looked at my family as if they were my clients.”
San Clemente, CA, 2022 / Kella Photography
In addition to embodying the home’s mid-century cues and the Spanish Village aesthetic, she wanted to embed love and individual personality into the home. She set about designing her children’s rooms as a reflection of their identities.
San Clemente, CA, 2021 / photographer: Charlotte Lea / featuring the Kintsu® Single-Handle Lavatory Faucet.
To suit her teenage son’s inquisitive personality and varied interests, she designed a moody, wabi-sabi space that felt imperfect and masculine. The room was bathed in deep, rich color—and the bathroom, accented with the Kintsu® Bath Collection, which Brown chose for its subtle lines.
“I wanted to honor his future self and know that he would enjoy growing up in that space,” Brown says.
San Clemente, CA, 2021 / photographer: Charlotte Lea / featuring the ROOK® Single-Handle Vessel Lavatory Faucet.
In her teenage daughter’s room, Brown wanted to evoke creativity and individuality. She contrasted subdued hues with colorful ceramic tile reminiscent of the area’s Spanish Colonial style. To the bold palette of the bathroom, she added pieces from the Rook® Bath Collection. Brown felt it brought a softer, more feminine energy to her daughter’s space.
For her primary bathroom, though, Brown selected the Frank Lloyd Wright® Bath Collection by Brizo®. Having grown up in Arizona, she’d always felt drawn to Wright’s work, philosophy, and commitment to harmony with nature. She wanted to reflect that connection in her own space.
San Clemente, CA, 2021 / photographer: Charlotte Lea / featuring the Frank Lloyd Wright® Bath Collection.
“Something I really treasure in my design is the unexpected,” Brown says. “To me, that is Frank Lloyd Wright.”
In a bath space soaked in natural light, Brown paired the collection with Breccia Viola marble and organic accents. She also emulated Wright’s signature blend of interior and exterior design approaches in the space.
“Something I really treasure in my design is the unexpected. To me, that is Frank Lloyd Wright.”
The Brown home is an homage—to family, to nature, to great art and the artists who make it. Among the most significant tributes in the project is the powder room, which Brown designed to memorialize her father’s unexpected passing in 2020.
During her grief, Brown lost her creative urge for some time. But when she rediscovered her father’s work as a rock-and-roll photographer, she felt inspired to create a space that embodied his memory.
San Clemente, CA, 2021 / photographer: Charlotte Lea / featuring the Frank
Lloyd Wright® Widespread Lavatory Faucet.
San Clemente, CA, 2021 / photographer: Charlotte Lea / featuring the Frank
Lloyd Wright® Two-Handle Floor Mount Tub Filler with lever handles.
“My father is alive to me in those captures,” Brown says. “So I really wanted a rock-and-roll homage to his creative endeavors.”
Brown chose the Jason Wu for Brizo™ Bath Collection to reflect her father’s artistic spirit in the powder room.
“I almost begin to think there is no such thing as a design style. It’s really just our personal expression.”
A tribute to family, to her creative influence, to the Spanish Village by the Sea—Brown’s San Clemente home is a love letter to those closest to her heart. She says that the project is very much in keeping with her own thoughts on style.
San Clemente, CA, 2021 / photographer: Charlotte Lea / featuring the Rook® Kitchen Collection.
“I almost begin to think there is no such thing as a design style. It’s really just our personal expression,” she said. “And Brizo is telling a story very honestly. Every design project is a beautiful collaboration, and I just love collaborating with Brizo because they’ve really highlighted the art of design.”
