A tall man in a small house needs vision and energy. Fortunately, Richard Fast has both. And, he has a good eye. Co-owner of Greeson & Fast Design in Asheville’s River Arts District, the interior designer practices what he preaches in his two-level townhouse in the Belvedere community of north Asheville’s Beaverdam section.
Fast has redone and lived in no less than four dozen houses in the past 25 years. Now the self-proclaimed perfectionist prefers a relatively compact space.
“I would go bankrupt in a big home,” says Fast, most of whose clients live outside the Asheville area. “They have big homes. But they can afford them. I did this one for myself. I had no one to answer to, except a little bit to my dog Izzy.”
Dog and master rule over a home small enough that all of it is enjoyed. On two levels, it has uses both social and seasonal. The main floor, where Fast lives, has a sunny living room and a large deck that looks into the woods, both perfect for warm-weather entertaining. The lower floor, where guests stay, is where he burrows in winter, the darkish den warm, snug and alluring.
Fast likes mixing the contemporary with the antique and ethnic. Which explains the living room’s Moroccan coffee table and the 18th-century French chairs that he covered with Ikat fabric in an African design. Nearby on the wall is a Cherokee hatchet with bear claws, surrounded by 1920s sepia-toned photos of Hopi Indians.
“I’m attracted to the history,” says Fast. “I always think about what people used the artifacts for, and where they’ve been, and how they ended up here. These pieces have soul. That’s something new furniture can’t do.”
Nothing in Fast’s home looks as though it came from a big-box store, a design sense he inherited in part from his mother — whom he says was like Rosalind Russell’s flamboyant title character in Auntie Mame. Each year, after spending a month vacationing in places such as Spain, Japan and Africa, she would redo the family home in colors, textures and furnishings she found abroad.
When Fast first saw the 1,500-square-foot townhouse, it was “typical late ‘80s,” with small rooms and a smoky-mirrored wet bar. “To me, this was an unattractive box … the kind of space where you have to create some architectural interest.”
So, working around the three-bedroom, two-bath floor plan, he took out the bar. Being from Florida, with its wide-open, sun-drenched skies, he also knocked out a couple walls to banish dark corners. Fast installed an iron-forged, sea-urchin-spine chandelier in the dining area, one that still drops sea salt onto the rosewood-topped table.
“You’ve got to have places to rest your eyes,” he says, looking across the table to the large steel Buddha head sitting on a minimalist white-lacquered buffet. The views in any home shouldn’t overload the senses, he believes. That’s why he’s constantly editing pieces at home. Often that results in less, not more.
“If I put 40 things on top of this console, you wouldn’t see any of them.” He’s pleased with the peace of place the Buddha brings to the dining space.
“They say with most designers, their homes are like their laboratories,” he remarks, moving into the bathroom. Fast is nearing the end of a remodel there, having removed a giant Jacuzzi that took an entire hot-water heater to fill. The room, in pastel ocean palette, conjures up the shore with its pebbled floor, sea-glass-colored tile and floating cabinetry.
When finished, the bathroom will contain a blend of natural materials, contemporary stylings and a touch of vintage, including one of two 1940s pharmacy cabinets he scavenged in Asheville. The designer likes the way “mix” can lead to “mystery” — how it takes people a moment to understand a quirky collection. He smiles when visitors in the den observe the tarpon, spray-painted white, mounted on the wall. They’re not sure what to think. Exactly, says Fast.
The master bedroom was a 14- by 14-foot box before he took over. He opened it up by selecting wallpaper, patterned with the silhouettes of trees, that mirrors the forested view he sees when he wakes up in his California King bed. “Most people, when you say ‘wallpaper,’ freak. But there are so many good ones,” he says. “This one doesn’t overpower the room. It’s a backdrop. I love it because it looks like lightning, depending on my mood.”
The paper’s vertical pattern stretches the space from floor to ceiling, and the wall sconces throw light that makes the 8-foot walls seem taller. Cool, neutral colors expand the space and relax the senses — all wonderful tips for making a small space larger.
Fast’s last frontier is the guestroom downstairs. A room that exists just as he found it, with cheap carpet and zip for personality, it’s waiting to be transformed into “an extreme hotel room that for two, three days you like but think, ‘I couldn’t live here.’ Which is about how long I want my guests to stay,” he says, laughing.
It’s a small world, after all.