It wasn’t easy, said interior designer Sabah Mansoor, but she somehow managed to fit five different kinds of marble into one en-suite bathroom, creating a tapestry-like stone mural in the space.
The bathroom, dubbed “L’eau Muse,” adjoined the Menlo Park-based designer’s “Atelier of Dreams” room at the 2025 San Francisco Decorator’s Showcase — the 46-year-old annual tradition where designers deck out a home.
The “atelier” is technically a bedroom, but Mansoor set it up as a design studio with interwoven ropes and small lights crisscrossing the ceiling. Intricate hand-painted wall murals look like pages from a fashion designer’s sketchpad.
“Ornate detail is back,” Mansoor said, though she conceded that buyers for the home at 2935 Pacific Avenue, which is coming to market next week with a $20 million asking price, would be unlikely to leave the fanciful room as is.
But the decorator’s showcase has to be a little extra if it wants to be inspiring to the over 16,000 people who will walk through its doors over the next month.
“Someone might not walk in and say, ‘We want all of these elements all at once.’ But there might be areas that you would be able to leave with and take home, kind of use and interpret in your own way,” she said.
Layering different textures and patterns, hand-painted wall and ceiling coverings and, yes, lots of marble were the running themes in this year’s showcase, which used 21 Bay Area designers to reimagine the 9,400-square-foot turn-of-the-century home.
While furniture, art and some fixtures will leave the Pacific Heights mansion after the showcase, which benefits the financial aid program for San Francisco University High School, the marble and other built-ins stay, as do improvements to the backyard and roof deck, according to the event’s executive director, Stephanie Yee.
She estimates about $500,000 in product, with three sponsors for the marble alone, have been brought into the home over the last three months in preparation.
“The common misbelief is that a lot of this work is cosmetic and people just bring in furniture,” she said. “In actuality, most designers are going to change almost every surface, whether it’s new tile, new flooring, plastering the wall, new marble. They really structurally change how the space is.”
All of the work is permitted and done to code, a feat given the short turnaround time. Designers donate their time, and many work their relationships to get materials donated and art work and furniture loaned as well. San Carlos-based designer Kendra Nash, whose “Global Nest” bedroom was inspired by Mexico, Southeast Asia and New Zealand, said 80 percent of the furniture and accessories were donated or on loan. She also had an adjoining bathroom to design for her room, and put in a pink toilet. Colored toilets are making a comeback, she believes.
“Who doesn’t love a pink toilet?” she said. “I mean, the homeowner doesn’t, so it’s coming home with me. Yay for me.”
Bay Area designers have to apply to get one of the 27 spaces in the showcase. One standout is a garden suite with a bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, all designed by Larkspur’s Katie Monkhouse, who installed a leafy couch, snake rug and handpainted bee wallpaper to nod to the backyard beyond. Another is a teen bedroom “Imaginarum” with grasscloth walls, a custom-painted and embroidered ceiling and a dedicated selfie station designed by Kentfield’s Heather K. Bernstein.
The office, called “Beauty Interrupted,” is from San Mateo’s Leslie Lamarre. In it, a bespoke desk merges with the damask wallpaper. The “Moroccan Mirage” dining room from Corte Madera’s Julie Rootes was inspired by Marrakesh hotels and features a tented ceiling and wall coverings made out of a rich maroon pleated alpaca fabric.
Design submissions take place in mid-January, and some designers may try for one room but end up getting another, or not get selected at all. The pay off for participating can be “hugely valuable,” Yee said. Previous showcase designers got new clients and plenty of media attention out of the deal, as well as the prestige of being picked.
“There’s just a level of, people know you did showcase,” she said.
The biggest expenses for the house’s host, the private high school, are food and staffing for two 400-person fundraising galas that take place during the event, which runs from April 26 to May 26, and having the five-level home cleaned, which happens 42 times during the month, she said.
The event has raised over $19 million for financial aid over 46 showcases, with last year’s event bringing in over $1 million. The school hopes to top that this year, Yee said, with the money coming from donors and sponsors, as well as individual ticket holders, who pay about $50 a piece to tour the home.
Potential homebuyers, of course, get to tour the home free of charge. Listed for just under $20 million, the home officially returns to market next week, according to a rep for Sotheby’s, which holds the listing. It first hit the market with the same asking price last fall. Listing agent Neill Bassi declined to comment on how hosting the event could impact the home’s desirability, but it seems to be working: He was on site last week doing a private tour with a potential buyer just after a press preview event at the home.
The turn-of-the-century property was originally built as a Tudor-style three-unit investment property for the widow of a banker in 1902, but was transformed into a single-family home with the garden apartment on the ground floor and a more classically inspired look in 2009, according to the organizers.
Yee said the local real estate community not only acts as sponsors, with ads from many high-end agents in the 180-page program book, but also brings clients through and hosts events at the house. The high school has never partnered with a specific agency, but Yee said she’d be open to it.
Agents also provide valuable insights on which homes could potentially make good showcase options. The showcase home is often, but not always, up for sale.
“We do a lot of sleuthing, a lot of research,” she said of locating the right home each year. “One of the reasons that I want our real estate agents to have a good experience is that they are often our leads to the house, so they’re a really great pipeline for us as well.”
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