Antonio and Celine Tadrissi are photographed in their master bedroom in Mississauga, on Oct. 5, 2018.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Architect and multidisciplinary designer Antonio Tadrissi has created unique spaces and products for a crop of well-known clients (case in point: Drake’s Toronto and Miami abodes). He’s also behind the design of Toronto’s Hammam Spa on King Street West, which he and his wife, Celine Tadrissi, own, along with recently launched skincare line Céla. However, his most impactful project might just be the Mississauga, Ont., home he shares with Celine and their three daughters, Caprice, Bella and Colette.
“This will be our last house that we build and live in,” says Antonio (the couple have two others, in Los Angeles and Turks and Caicos). “It’s really an extension of our life and we love it.” He is resistant to the idea of enclosed, separate spaces that isolate family members. “I hate doors,” he says plainly. “I understand the need for privacy, but I don’t like doors because they are in your way. You have to keep opening and closing them.” In the master bedroom (and the rest of the home), that aversion led Antonio to use architectural elements, furnishings and plants to distinguish spaces, while still encouraging free-flowing circulation.
Celine wasn’t always on board – being partial to doors herself – but has relented. “It’s been an ongoing argument for many years,” she says. “But the design of the house has incorporated and thought of our family life and interactions so well.” That means that wherever the kids – ages 7, 11 and 12 – are in the house, they’re visually or audibly accessible, as are dad and mom. “There’s not that feeling of being completely separate,” she says. “Even the layout of our bedroom has somewhat of a living space to it. It’s not uncommon for the whole family to be in our room.”
“Finally, I’m getting the credit,” Antonio jokes. He had the idea to use herringbone-patterned oak on the central fireplace surrounding instead of stone, to blur the boundary between floor and wall. The custom-made neon sign, rendered in pink for fun, is a handwritten statement announcing the purpose of the room: “Sleeping with you.” The bed, with ample storage, was one of Antonio’s first designs, created 18 years ago. In the 850-square-foot condo the couple inhabited then, it was up against a wall. But here, they’ve moved it off the perimeter and refinished the back with mirror. It serves as another divider, between the sleeping area and bath.
When it comes to furnishings, the couple are partial to Roche Bobois Mah Jong modular seating by Jean Paul Gaultier, and Italian brand Fornasetti (a chair and pillowcases spotlight operatic soprano Lina Cavalieri, a favourite motif, finger to mouth, calling for hush). A Persian silk rug, picked up in Istanbul on a scouting trip for Hammam, dampens sound and creates an area for casual gathering. The bedroom features canvases from the couple’s growing collection, with work by Alex Turco and others. That exposure to art at home has had some influence on the brood. Their eldest, Caprice, conceived a business and web platform for selling art by kids, all by the tender age of 8, although the project fell apart owing to bureaucratic red tape, Antonio says.
Still, seeing his daughters engage with both the creative and business aspects of art has made purchasing it for their home a worthwhile investment, Antonio says. Exposure and openness – to this and other activities, such as cooking – has made an impact, due in no small part to the visual and physical access the family has to one another. Seems as though living in a “theatre,” as Antonio puts it, has given their girls the tools to act. “We realized that [the openness] is actually functioning quite well. It serves as a very interactive structure.”
Get the look
Mah Jong (Yoru) bed by Hans Hopfer & Marco Fumagalli, price upon request at Roche Bobois.
Fornasetti Capitello Corinzio chair, $5,400 at Leisure Center.
Muuto Cosy in grey table lamp, $325 at Gabriel Ross.
Contemporary rug (10 x 14 feet), US$6,720 at ABC Carpet & Home.
Dot cushion soft by Hay Denmark (Rose), $106.25 at The Modern Shop.
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