The Unabashed Maximalist
This home at the top of a San Francisco row house is a kaleidoscope of colors and textures. Every piece has a story to tell.
A.J. Johari has an extraordinary eye. His vivid collections fill rooms that are unstudied yet artful, stimulating but friendly. “I started by collecting vintage lamps, scouring flea markets and antiques. Now they’re in every room of the house, casting a warm glow on a very eclectic mix of furniture and objects.”
Anthropomorphism abounds at this colorful third-storey playground, where furniture, art, and accessories seem to come alive. Johari points to a part of his office he calls “the gallery,” which is a wall displaying diverse pieces.
An antique concave mirror hangs below a Welby starburst clock; an age-stained French wood printing block contrasts with a copper sculpture by Vancouver artist Michael Hewitt: the curated hodgepodge of curiosities is watched over by a taxidermied deer ca. 1979. Johari describes that gallery wall as “an organism” that constantly evolves.
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Treasures Around Every Corner
Johari is adept at finding great pieces at low prices, or even for free. Everything is sourced gleefully from dealers and flea markets; or it may have been something kicked to the curb. San Francisco and the greater Bay Area offer many different places to shop and scavenge, from the monthly Alameda Antiques show to the steep curbs of Johari’s own Haight–Ashbury neighborhood. Online marketplaces also yield fruit: That’s where Johari found a rare set of Danish counter stools.
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Johari is also fond of change. Only about half the furnishings from his previous home are in use here and nearly all of the smaller decorative items are new. “I shop at least once a week,” he admits. “The trips are fun; I take my dog with me and it’s a way for me to decompress.”
Johari discovered a love for vintage afghan blankets: he has over 50 in his collection. He respects that someone spent hours and hours creating each afghan for a specific person, and marvels that he can enjoy them for about $5 apiece.
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Johari and his husband, Graham, love their 110-year-old house, which they found and purchased a few years ago, more for its artful bones than for its architectural integrity. Like many other houses in San Francisco, it was clad in stucco at some point after the 1906 earthquake and fires.
Inside, the classic floor plan was converted to an open one to suit modern tastes. Yet distinctive Edwardian structural elements remain, such as large front windows within sun-filled bays, tall ceilings, oak hardwood floors, built-in cabinets and shelving, and exquisite art-glass windows.
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Bored during the Pandemic and tired of their rental in the Castro District, the pair started looking for something they could afford to buy. As one of the country’s most expensive real-estate markets, San Francisco isn’t the place to find bargains, even for fixer-uppers.
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“We were on Zillow and we walked through a lot of open houses,” Johari says. After losing out on their first offer, the couple discovered and made an offer on this house before it even opened to the public.
Instead of the usual story of major renovations and repairs, the couple moved in without changing a thing structurally. Johari couldn’t resist papering a small room (now Graham’s office) in a vibrant botanical print on black. He also installed wainscoting and painted it a soft green.
“My favorite part is our plant collection,” Johari says. “Our home feels like a lush oasis in the middle of the city. We have more than 50 plants, from towering fiddle-leaf figs to cascading pothos. Like the artwork and furnishings, each plant adds its own charm. I love spending my weekends tending to them.”
Besides its relative affordability, the house offers the big yard for his dog Ripley. The spiral staircase to the loft is a playground for his cats Ollie and Loki. The four-legged residents are pampered, yet you will never find a dog bed here.
“There are no pet furnishings in this house,” Johari says firmly. “I don’t like them.” Instead, he looks for free chairs for his animal friends. Each room has a carefully chosen chair draped with a vintage afghan.
— Written by Rika Kotite. Photographs by A.J. Johari.
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A Sculpted Spine: A practical space-saver but also the sculptural core, the spiral staircase is what sold Johari on the house. It adds interest to the dining area and frames art and furnishings.
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The office has a Danish mid-century teak desk by Peter Løvig Nielsen.
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The striking Modeline floor lamp resembles a saguaro cactus. A large Cassina Soriana lounge chair is ”perfect for man or dog.”
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In Johari’s warm grey office, “Knot,” a vintage serigraph by Bay Area artists Reis & Manwaring, hangs over the credenza.
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Graham’s small office has a striking wallpaper found on Etsy. Like the floor lamp in the dining room, this table lamp is part of the California Cactus line designed by Charles Gibilterra in the 1970s for the Modeline Lamp Co.
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Loki’s afghan is folded on a chair from Urban Outfitters; the vintage lamp is by Nova of California.
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View From the Stair: Johari installed handmade knobs with a brass detail on the living-room built-ins. He filled the open shelves with books, art, pottery, and sculpture. Vintage afghans are in rotation.
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Island in Navy: After a year of searching, Johari found four Danish counter stools, dating to the 1960s–1970s, on Facebook Marketplace—just the right height for the kitchen island.
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The eccentric orange “Phantom” chair by Verner Panton was an early find for Johari, and a steal at $100. It set the tone for the restful loft while convincing Johari to use orange as a primary accent color.
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The room mixes styles, from Folk to Coastal and Post-modern.
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After Johari discovered the textured painting (ca. 1967) of geometric shapes, orange became the featured color in the bedroom. The small, stained-glass window (“quintessential San Francisco!”) is original.
