Timeless Design is "Nowstalgic" - and Financially Responsible

*Part II of the seven part series: What Spending a Decade Inside Our Design Firm Taught Our CFO

When I first started at Thirteen and Crowne, I kept hearing about “timeless design”. It seemed hyperbolic, like an industry-specific expression meant to convey that old things are better than the newest fads. I now understand that timelessness protects the core of a design, with all its foundational assumptions, for decades.

     In luxury residential projects, especially large-scale homes where every room can become its own expensive decision, timeless design protects the client from fragmentation and overspending. This means the hardest, most expensive decisions don’t have to be made over and over again, saving clients thousands of dollars. 

     Jen knows how to create continuity across time, using materials, proportions, architectural details, furnishings, and color stories. I have seen her design decisions save clients from costly mistakes because Jen was not merely asking, “What looks good today?” She was asking, “What will still be true to this client’s values five, ten, or fifteen years from now?”

At Thirteen and Crowne, timelessness also means creating your home in four dimensions, not just the usual three dimensions of length, width, and depth. Dialing in the three dimensions of a space is crucial, but understanding how the design artistry will exist across the fourth dimension of time is even more important. I learned that addressing the fourth dimension means practicing nowstalgia – the dual artistry of creating something you find sentimental right now, and which you predict will become nostalgic decades from now.

I am naturally attracted to novelty. But a space that gets out of balance with too much novelty invariably invites replacement. It will become chaotic and unruly, and never really become nostalgic at all. A space grounded in timeless choices roots its inhabitants in calm because we feel settled in it; we look forward to coming home to it; we enjoy living in it. True nowstalgia.

Jen's skill with timeless design makes a home feel professionally curated for years, rather than merely assembled for a moment. The result is a house that is more than a monument to the year it was finished; it is an enduring, living space to be enjoyed for generations.