KBC by Benjamin Sullivan

French Kissed

This kitchen cozies up to the dining and living rooms in classic European style.

Lisa Marie Hart Home & Design, Real Estate

KBC by Benjamin Sullivan
KKBC by Benjamin Sullivan brought Parisian flair to this home in The Mesa that he describes as “modern manor style.” His polished French country kitchen wraps around a dining table for eight and opens to the living room.
PHOTOS BY CHRIS MILLER, IMAGINE IMAGERY

Maybe it isn’t surprising: two eye doctors who practice at Oh La La De Paris in downtown Palm Springs wound up with a French country kitchen at home.

Before KBC by Benjamin Sullivan stepped into the picture, their closed-in cubbyhole of a cook space sat adjacent to the dining room. Low ceilings cramped the potential in both areas.

Homeowners Dr. Raul Arencibia and Dr. Jeff Northcutt asked Sullivan for a large, open-concept design that would incorporate the dining room. The kitchen needed to wrap around their farmhouse-style dining table, remain open to the living room, and complement the existing flow and style of the home, situated in The Mesa neighborhood foothills.

“I started with the appliances,” Sullivan says. His design took shape around a striking set of two Blue Star French-door ovens. In a custom olive green hue, they sit side by side, claiming nearly one full wall. The ovens inspired a soft green tile along the backsplash. Black and cream cabinets were a crisp yet casual choice.

Above the ovens, Sullivan added a wire insert in the cabinet doors for display. The homeowners store their antique china collection inside. As a backdrop, Sullivan wallpapered the back of the cabinets with toile.

“Ben’s style and 
choice of all surfaces and appliances were spot on,” Dr. Raul Arencibia says of the upgrade that showcases twin Blue Star ovens. “We let him pick out almost every detail. He knocked it out of the park.”

“Then we integrated a Liebherr French-door refrigerator to the left of the range,” Sullivan adds. To the right of the range sits the pantry. They look exactly the same, down to the handles (page 8). That’s the beauty of integration.

To create a visual extension of the rest of the home, Sullivan worked with the stone detail that wraps around the window casings and with the Versailles-pattern travertine flooring. “We had a lot of patching and repairs to do, but the tile company was able to help and you can’t even tell,” he says. Raised ceilings lighten the overall mood.

“We like to entertain, and the new space allows us to enjoy our guests in a completely integrated cooking, dining, and living space,” Northcutt says.

A bonus to the open design concept: The doctors enjoyed watching the renovated space transform day by day from the living room.

Et voilà!