Man on a Mission

WHEN DESIGNER David Reed Weatherford was a boy, growing up in a Seattle far smaller and simpler than it is today, his grandmother took him along to browse antique shops. His Grandfather Reed had other prowls; he took David to the Pike Place Market to poke through junk shops.

"I got into the habit of looking at old things, and over time, I became familiar with them," he said. As a freshman at the University of Washington, majoring in English and business administration, he took a summer job at William L. Davis, then a venerable Seattle firm that provided European antiques and interior-design services to wealthy clients. "I was hooked," Weatherford says of the experience. He switched his major to interior design and never looked back.

In the Northwest, where much of our taste has been shaped by Scandinavian and Asian influences, Weatherford stands as an exponent of traditional European design. He has become a tastemaker in his field, educating clients about classical furnishings and leading tours to see stately homes in Europe. When the Sultan of Brunei wanted 18 suites of the Alexis Hotel redecorated for his personal use during the APEC meeting in Seattle in 1993, Weatherford got the job.

He began getting clients while he was still a student, stayed with William L. Davis for 13 years and then in 1969, at age 34, opened his own business, in a remodeled Capitol Hill mansion, at 133 14th Ave. E. He has been busy ever since.

"It's like being onstage all the time," he says. A steady stream of people stop by to ask questions about design, to bring things in for appraisal, to check out the newest shipment of antiques.

"As a designer, I've been asked to do all kinds of things - so many varied and different houses. As all good designers do, I take into account first the tastes of the client, and how they entertain.

"What I bring to the table that's special is a knowledge of European antiques. I help my clients to live with pieces of real and lasting value, not this week's hot trend, and not things that anyone can order out of a catalog. I've traveled the world for the past 40 years to find things that are special and unique."

He believes that the worst thing a designer can do is to put people in a house that isn't comfortable to all its residents, including pets - a point on which he is particularly sensitive since he shares his own home with a pair of whippets he rescued as foundlings.

Unlike most homes for which he designs, many of them mansions, his own home is small at 2,500 square feet. When he found it 15 years ago, he says, "It was an absolute mess. It was an old summer house, Greek Revival style, built in Madison Park in 1908. The roof was falling in, and it needed everything."

His redesign could be a textbook study in how good design can optimize space.

His small, square dining room was scarcely more than a wide hall between the living room and kitchen when he moved in. Now, he can seat up to a dozen people for dinner at an immense octagonal McGuire table that appears light in the space because it is glass-topped. Walls lightly padded and covered with a delicately printed fabric soften the sound. A large mirror over the sideboard reflects light from the crystal chandelier and increases the room's visual space. Candlelight from crystal wall sconces and tea lights on the Colonial American sideboard surround diners with soft light. Four of his grandmother's Victorian side chairs rest against the wall, ready to supplement the tooled-leather ones that surround the table.

He replaced the original living-room fireplace with one of antique marble, lightening the feeling of the room by removing heavy built-in bookcases flanking the fireplace and replacing them with etageres for displaying small treasures. New French doors that replaced an old window open to a private side garden.

"I don't have a view, but I'm close to Lake Washington and to the office," Weatherford said. "Having the garden extends my living space so much that I've had as many as 75 people here for a party - my son's wedding dinner - without feeling crowded. I set up the bar outside, and people linger there."

He has plans for further remodeling, but says, "Like the shoemaker's child, I'm always postponing my own work for someone else's. And," he sighs, "I hate being torn up."

He's been busy in recent years launching two new arms of his business. In 1993, the year he redecorated Alexis Hotel suites for the Sultan of Brunei, Weatherford launched Planet Retail Studios to focus on designing retail stores. Planet Retail Studios has been wildly successful by any measure. Projects have ranged from designing the Cartier flagship store in Paris to a dozen retail stores for the Baltimore Ravens professional football stadium to offices for the Wizards of the Coast game company in Seattle.

A few years ago, when Planet Retail Studios moved to larger quarters, Weatherford decided to keep the lease on its former corner space at 1200 Second Ave. He opened David Weatherford Gallery to feature rare and beautiful examples of antique European furniture as fine art. The new gallery's target clientele, he says, are "advanced collectors" able to afford investment-quality pieces at $25,000 to $100,000 - and sometimes higher. He hired German antiques scholar Harry Moody and his wife, Allison Moody, to manage the gallery.

"It has expanded my whole horizon," Weatherford says. The gallery was launched with an exhibition of American Impressionist paintings in combination with German and Austrian Biedermeier furniture from the early 19th century. The show caught critics' attention by featuring some early women Impressionist painters largely overlooked by historians.

Coming next is an exhibition of work by Northwest glass artists alongside their historic glass counterparts in technique and style. The gallery will build an inventory of important historical glass, though no one is certain how long it will take. In the meantime the gallery has an ongoing, changing exhibition of antique furniture and decorative objects.

Weatherford makes twice-yearly excursions abroad to scout and buy antiques. Next April he will take a dozen clients to Italy and France to visit notable houses and gardens and go antique shopping. "Developing taste has to do with being exposed to things. My taste has improved with knowledge and with travel," he says. He's confident the same can be true for anyone who takes the trouble to look.

Despite his love affair with expensive European antiques, he doesn't want people to think he does only mansions, or jobs costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. "I love to help young people get started with good design," he says. "Everybody throws enough money away to buy one or two good pieces every year. If you start when you're young, by the time you're middle-aged, you'll really have something."

Deloris Tarzan Ament is a Seattle writer. Benjamin Benschneider is staff photographer for Pacific Northwest magazine.