[su_box title=”AMANDA MCCLEMENTS” box_color=”#2c5372″ radius=”0″]You know her from: Salt & Sundry and Little Leaf. McClements was one of the first shopkeepers to move into Union Market when it debuted in 2012. She also recently opened an event space, the Sun Room, in Eckington.[/su_box]
Sitting in her living room, Amanda McClements is surrounded by a delightful mix of decor: a high-backed rattan peacock chair, a love seat draped with a blue-and-white shibori-dyed throw, plants everywhere. “I’m constantly having a design identity crisis,” she says. “I’m into a West Coast 1970s vibe, but I also love an antique New Orleans mansion dripping with velvet.”
Her red-brick 1885 rowhouse near 14th Street, however, definitely doesn’t look like it’s in crisis. It’s true that it contains a mash-up of styles, but McClements pulls off the eclectic look at home in the same sophisticated way she does at her Salt & Sundry stores in Union Market and Logan Circle. On the open first floor, Cisco Brothers sofas in neutral fabric get heaped with exotic textiles such as vintage kilim pillows and a rainbow-stripe Bolivian frazada blanket. The adjacent dining area is anchored by a black- walnut farm table made by McClements’s North Carolina carpenter father; on the wall, a vintage rattan folding screen serves as art. Houseplants in handmade ceramic pots on the kitchen window sill could be a display from her indoor-gardening shop, Little Leaf.
“When I bought the house, I loved that it was wide open and airy, which felt modern,” says McClements. “But I also think that if you have a property of a certain age, you should pay homage to the past.” With that in mind, she has incorporated a number of period pieces, including a Mad Men–era drum table and old paintings of what she calls her faux “vintage relatives” leaning against the foyer’s wall. “I like a lot of different stuff,” says McClements. “That’s why I opened a store.”
This article appears in the December 2019 issue of Washingtonian.
