The soign‚ home of a renowned doctor, a career diplomat, and their young son engages your eyes the moment you enter their grand foyer. Tina Alster and Paul Frazer’s refined aesthetic is reflected in every detail throughout their Northwest Washington home. Their boldly linear art collection is balanced with the graceful curves of their French art deco furniture. While most of the home is a subtle interplay of neutrals, splashes of color add verve.
The couple began collecting small items such as Line Vautrin boxes during their European travels in the early 1990s, when Frazer was the Canadian ambassador based in Prague. They later began collecting larger items, specifically art deco furniture. “We caught it on the upswing,” Frazer says, adding that he and Alster found several pieces of their art deco furniture in Berlin. They’re equally as captivated by art, especially contemporary art with modernist and expressionist roots that reflect early 20th century style.
“We started collecting French deco furniture because of its intrinsic beauty and craftsmanship, including beautiful and rare woods, clean lines, and manageable scale. French deco has lasting appeal – it looks as modern today as it did close to 100 years ago and the workmanship and design are superlative,” says Alster. She is director of the Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery, a clinical professor of dermatology at Georgetown University Medical Center, author of six books, and a dermatology spokesperson for Lanc“me. Frazer, after a successful career as a Canadian diplomat, is now associated with The Livingston Group, a lobbying firm on Capitol Hill.
“We like to collect when we have time. It’s been something we’ve done together and built together. We really selected all of these pieces for a reason. They all have a story,” Frazer says.
Their house has a story, too. In 2005, the couple and their son Nicholas, 11, were living in Georgetown when an unsolicited buyer made an offer for their house they couldn’t refuse. In search of a home, they turned to friends Rudi Djabbarzadeh and his wife Fabiola Martens. Rudi D, as he is known, is principal of the architectural firm C-Red Corp. and of the construction company, Axis Development Corp. He had designed this house and was within a few months of completing it when Alster and Frazer, knowing their collections would fit in handsomely, decided to buy it.
Since the house in Kent was on the cusp of completion, but had not been finalized, Rudi D made several modifications to meet Alster and Frazer’s desires. For instance, he had the floors darkened at their request. Then, since he had already added Brazilian cherry paneling to the dining room ceiling for warmth and intimacy, he later had it stained darker to reflect the floors. Meanwhile, Martens, principal of Fabiola Martens Interiors, suggested the wallcoverings and window treatments throughout the Central European-style house. Their refined work provided an exquisite backdrop for the exceptional furnishings. The dining room suite, for instance, including the dining table, buffet, bar, vitrine, and eight chairs, had been exhibited at the Exposition internationale des arts decoratifs et industriels de 1925 and won Jules Leleu a “Grand Prix”, Alster says.
The Collectors’ Quest
Remarkably, Frazer and Alster, who search for pieces in pristine condition, found their exquisite dining room buffet and bar with the original green marble tops in impeccable condition. Not all of their discoveries, however, have been in such fine shape. More than 50 percent of Alster and Frazer’s deco furniture has required expert restoration in terms of upholstery and wood or hardware polishing.
“We always do extensive research on our own to determine a piece’s provenance and original presentation,” Alster says. Their sofa and chairs for the living room, for instance, had to be completely reconstructed. “There was no upholstery. The furniture came in bags for the hardwood frame. There were no springs. My upholsterer reconstructed the shape,” says Martens, who suggested tone-on-tone taupe velvet upholstery.
“Those pieces were restored under our direction to mimic their original appearance at the 1925 exhibition in Paris. As you might surmise, this is a true passion and a labor of love,” Alster says. She and Frazer found most of their art deco pieces at various times through Gary and Janet Calderwood of the Calderwood Gallery in Philadelphia. They also purchased several pieces abroad. “I’ve been known to check furniture as luggage on British Air,” Alster says with a smile, mentioning chairs she’s had boxed up and flown home from London and Prague.
Alster and Frazer enjoy their treasure hunts. When on holiday, for instance, Alster keeps an eye out for shagreen boxes from the 1920s and ‘30s. Frazer is often on the lookout for functional modern chairs with clean lines, such as the three iconic chairs pictured opposite. “Those kinds of things give you a reason to amble through cities. When we’re traveling, we ask, ‘What should we look for today? Japanese combs, shagreen boxes, Vautrin boxes and mirrors?’ Essentially, it’s an aesthetic search. You see a line, a design, a curve,” Frazer says. Alster adds, “We often go in different directions in an antique store, then meet and say, ‘Did you see that piece in the NW corner?’ Inevitably, we’ve spotted the same thing.”
Their searches span from art deco furniture to modern art. Works by Sol Lewitt, William Kentridge, Max Beckmann, Erich Mrozek, and George Rickey are among favorites that grace their home. “Our art collection is very personal to us,” Alster says.
Interconnected Spaces
In terms of architecture, the flow is one of the best features of Alster and Frazer’s generously proportioned 7,500 square foot home. “You should be able to enter a room and not have to exit it from the same place,” Rudi D says. In this house, from the entrance hallway, you may meander into the library, then stroll into the piano room, move into the living room, and follow a hidden door into the family room, which leads to the kitchen. From there, you could slip through the mudroom and the butler’s pantry through a concealed door that leads into the elegant dining room, which brings you back to the entrance hallway. Upstairs, rooms are interconnected as well. A bookcase in Nicholas’ room is actually a hidden passage to his playroom. The owners’ bedroom suite leads into a sitting room in one direction. In another, it leads to the bath, and out onto a balcony that overlooks the property.
The media room on the lower level flows out into the garden. In this home theatre area, Rudi D had originally designed the alcove with a semi-circular banquette with a built-in bench, but Alster suggested that the semi-circle be filled in to create a large, lounge-like platform. “We can have 12 kids in there for birthday parties,” she says.
Frazer, who also collects vintage prints of Niagara Falls, ON, his hometown, recently had them hung just outside the state-of-the-art wine cellar, which is also on the lower level. “Once we nail the last nail in the last wall, we joke that it’s time to move,” he says. In fact, Alster and Frazer are currently having a home designed in Georgetown by Hugh Newell Jacobsen that should be completed next year. But that’s another story.
