Just a few years after getting married and settling down in Palm Springs, California, Keith Jordan and Aamer Mumtaz found themselves dreaming of the Bay Area. “We’re both urban people, and we wanted to live in a city again,” Aamer says. “There’s just so much going on in San Francisco.”

They’d each lived there in the past, and Keith still owned an apartment in an 1880s Victorian in Lower Pacific Heights, so they decided to return in early 2020. Perched on a corner lot, the building has a gray-and-white facade with classic detailing, tall windows, and a bright red front door. Inside, the living and dining areas have original molding and ceiling medallions with icing-like swirls, which Keith and Aamer love—but the 1,196-square-foot one-bedroom lacked key features.

Since Keith, a mortgage banking professional, and Aamer, a digital healthcare entrepreneur, work remotely, they needed office space. Keith, who loves to cook, wanted a professional kitchen, and they also longed for a powder room for guests and additional storage space. A place for Aamer, an amateur artist, to paint would be a bonus.

As they searched for an architect, a friend of a friend recommended Tommy Haddock—and the three clicked immediately. “Like us, he was eager to do interesting and offbeat things—nothing cookie-cutter,” Aamer says. “We hit it off.”

In the living room, Haddock refurbished the original marble fireplace surround and added a new steel insert. “I’d wrap this whole place in marble if I could,” Keith says. The architect converted a closet in the dining area into a compact office sheathed in walnut, and he turned a hall closet into a powder room wrapped in cream-speckled vinyl.

At the end of the hall, Haddock practically gutted the kitchen, removing the pantry and a large stone chimney to create more space and installing a semicircular granite tabletop and new cabinets with a forest-green stain that lets the wood grain show through. A massive, custom stainless-steel hood and appliances from Thermador, Bosch, and Zephyr give the room an industrial gleam.

“How do we make an art gallery? How do we make a chef’s kitchen? Those were two very important elements in the design.”
—Tommy Haddock, architect

The primary bathroom is Haddock’s favorite part of the redesign. “We did this big, chiseled sink that looks like sculpture,” the architect says. There’s heated marble flooring and marble trim and gray ceramic wall tile. “It’s this calm little world that feels a bit like a cave,” Haddock says.

The home reflects who Keith and Aamer are and what they love. Aamer’s paintings hang on the walls, and rugs made in Afghanistan and custom dyed in Pakistan, where he grew up, lend warmth to the hall and living room. Keith, originally from Guyana, collects classic design pieces, including the Isamu Noguchi coffee table in the living room and the Philippe Starck dining set.

“The goal was to make the apartment feel bigger without making it bigger,” Haddock says. “We were frugal and careful and made everything fit,” explains Aamer—and they did so while preserving the apartment’s Victorian details. “We’ve had a few dinner parties since the project finished,” Keith says. “It’s great fun to have people over to just eat and chat—I think that’s what life’s all about.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Haddock Studio

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