6 Luxury Home Finishes That Make Your Abode Stand Out

Bespoke and rare surfaces and finishes have become a coveted must. Why keep up with the Joneses when you can turn their heads? “High-end design is no longer about abundance but about distinction,” adds Lisa McDennon, a designer in Laguna Beach, Calif.

Just as Mughal emperor Shah Jahan willed the semiprecious-stone inlay of the Taj Mahal into being, a certain clientele doesn’t just expect the unexpected but commands it. Today, that can mean a stair railing sculpted from cast bronze or a chandelier made of 450 shards of selenite (both, by the way, are Henault commissions). Here are the surfaces coveted by the design cognoscenti now.

Plaster Walls

Paint is predictable, almost passé, for certain clients. That’s especially true in many modern homes, which “can come off as cold and spare,” says Kirsten Molz of KHM Design. One antidote can be found in plaster walls that provide “a soft glow and create movement,” according to Molz. Los Angeles designer Ryan White often enlists European-limewash craftsmen, such as ClayCraft, to supply that elevated earthiness. “It adds a lot more depth and texture, but also warmth in a home versus standard paint,” he explains. White recently installed a plaster-sheathed snaking staircase in Malibu. “Without getting too woo-woo, it ignites something within your own sensibility, saying, ‘I feel calm in this space. I feel comfortable. I feel safe.’ And I think that really matters to all of us in life these days.”

Custom Murals

White selects hand-painted murals over wallpaper “nine times out of 10, just because it has a story to it, and it just feels more personal.” He recently commissioned decorative artist James Mobley to create cherry blossoms on the walls of a primary suite. “The house itself is a very modern home—lots of glass—so we wanted to bring the outdoors in… It was a fun, soft moment.” For West Palm Beach decorative artist Joseph Steiert, the customisation factor is often what clients are drawn to. Unlike a standard-issue wallcovering, his trompe-l’oeil treatment can be ultra-tailored. “I try to do something that’s original for the client to make it special for them,” Steiert explains. “Sometimes I’ll personalise it with a monogram or the client’s dog hidden in a mural.” For some, that truly bespoke touch is an easy decision. “They like the idea of it being specific to their house and nobody else has it. And perhaps some bragging rights.”

Bronze

Bronze is experiencing a renaissance, even in kitchens where marble and quartzite have been the norm. “I have done a custom-poured-bronze countertop a few times for very high-end luxe interiors,” says Susan Bednar Long, a designer in Dallas. “The material looks amazing in person… Subtle colour changes are part of its beauty, and it has an instant patina.” Henault worked on a newly created duplex in the famed Ansonia building on the Upper West Side, where every gleam told a story. “The stair railing, made entirely of new-cast bronze, expresses the modernist use in the balusters,” he says. “However, even these are not machine-made straight. There is the slightest taper from top to bottom. The handrail caps this off, again, expressing the fluidity of the material.”

Custom Wallpapers

Wallpaper is one of those design categories in which the internet has democratised knowledge. “No one wants mill-printed wallpaper anymore,” Henault says. That’s where bespoke papers and applications come in. “They want to do something that pushes the boundaries.” For one client, he had a small batch of hand-marbleised William Morris paper cut into squares and set into a pattern; for a different project, he cut sheets from Cannon/Bullock into varying rectangular sizes and asked the installer to mix them in a design that turned into what he has deemed a moody and magical mosaic: “It’s not what you use; it’s how you use it.”

Lacquer

“Clients are requesting high gloss now,” says New York designer Sasha Bikoff. “They want this glamorous, rich, luxurious finish for their homes.” Achieving a surface as shellacked as a Ferrari 488 isn’t cheap, “because glossy paint reflects light and imperfections like a mirror,” says Bikoff—but the process is worth it. Designer Chad Graci applied it to living-room ceilings of a private residence at the Four Seasons in New Orleans, where the lacquer hovers overhead like a shimmering pond. “Clients love this finish, especially in lower-ceiling scenarios since the reflective quality accentuates the vertical,” he says.

Rare Woods

“We have seen a number of clients who are leaning towards specialty woods but departing from years of richly stained walnuts or the ever-popular bleached, cerused oaks,” says Julie Kleiner, co-founder and principal designer of Seattle firm Massucco Warner, which employed blond Beeswing Primavera wood in a panelled library. “To achieve the very subtle finish, this wood requires countless steps in finishing to have the finish turn out even and get the exact right shade negating any yellow or streaky finishes or tones,” she explains. “While some clients might opt for lacquer, this is an equally luminous and beautiful finish.”

The truest form of wealth just may be singularity. “In my career, my focus has always been on ‘the hand that makes it’—the craftsmen behind the product,” Henault says. “I want to be able to see something about the material that clearly expresses itself as made by hand.” In an increasingly A.I.-riddled world, that human imprint is exactly the kind of personal touch we need.