Artistic Digest: Jose Ramirez Designs a House

It’s a lot of work for us, but the clients love it, and truly, Artistic Tile makes selecting the surfaces very easy. I work very closely with my clients; I’m very proud of how often I work with multiple generations of an extended family, even multiple residential projects for a single member of these families – I do their house in the city, their house in the country, then their children’s houses, so it’s a long-term relationship. We have become close, and when they refer to my status as a total design source as ‘one-stop shopping’; they speak to one person, and that person is me! I’m flattered that I can make it easy for them, while allowing our intent as designers to reach full fruition.”

amirez’s long association with his clients allows for easy collaboration. “This client has very good taste, she was on-board with the aesthetic of the house from ‘Day 1,’ and the kitchen
is the culmination of the drive toward the “Rustic-Chic” aesthetic.” The kitchen features
a ceiling with wooden beams glowing in the abundant natural light from banks of windows beneath, which, as Ramirez says, “hold up the room aesthetically as well as physically.”
Brass faucetry and details also pick up the glow, against deep grey custom cabinets and range. The counters and central island are of a great American marble, Montclair Striato, from the Vermont Quarries, in operation since the 18th century. Montclair Striato is characteristically crystalline white, with deep grey striations, and boasts very low porosity for a marble,
making it ideal for kitchen use and the relaxed lifestyle of a beach house.

The particular Montclair Striato block that Ramirez chose for the kitchen was not very tall,

so he made ingenious use of dark bronze detail to segment the slab on the sides of the island, where the stone forms a waterfall edge. The slab was also used to create aprons for the double sinks, and a striking stair landing, as a series of stacked “boxes,” meeting wooden stairs
configured in the same manner. Artistic Tile’s Slab Gallery is a favorite haunt of Ramirez and his clients, and he has long worked with Michal Abehsera, of Artistic Tile’s Architectural Sales division. When Ramirez is ready to select slab, he brings his clients along, and after choosing the right stone for their project, he says to Michal, “Let’s do a tour - let me see what else you have!,” and she makes sure to show him all that has arrived since his last visit.

mong the many extraordinarily stylish touches in this project, the choice of
Artistic Tile’s “Subway B-Train” white
ceramic tile is truly eye-catching. Applied to all walls in the kitchen, all the way to the ceiling, it is a lovely use of a simple, high-quality tile. Like the use of Bianco
Dolomiti broken joint mosaic as the kitchen floor, the B-Train adds a Parisian bistro flair. As Ramirez says, “there is something about the Subway tile!” Our Kyoto ceramic tile also paves the walls of a black, grey and white powder room. Made for Artistic Tile in
Japan, the signature “blistering” that gives this tile such unique surface interest occurs

in the kiln, due to the high natural clay
content. Once again, a simple material
of true integrity and high quality gives a

room real stature.

The classicism of the white-veined marble downstairs finds a perfect counterpoint
upstairs, in the light-filled master bathroom. Another beamed ceiling - this one peaked -
rises above banks of windows in the

Master bath, with light flooding a room full of spare but rich detail. The bathroom floor and the entire shower, all of Silver Wave slab,

are discreetly book-matched. The curving ripples of thundercloud grey, mercury and inkiest black anchor the room.

Ramirez intentionally kept this space minimal, with Zen-like touches,and a palette mainly limited to black and white, plus

the wood, deeper in shade than in the kitchen and on the staircase.

Silver Wave is a powerful stone – using it so sparingly gives it
more impact.”

- - -- Jose Ramirez