A Moroccan-Inspired Farmhouse in San Diego

When it comes to the accepted wisdom of designing homes on spec — offend no one by opting for the rainbow of beige — Sara Simon is a consistent rule breaker. Instead, the interior designer and founder of Handsome Salt relies on the entire rainbow to create one-of-a-kind environments.

This Encinitas home is no exception, even if its curbside appears casts a different impression. Painted a dramatic matte black, the exterior of the home makes a moody first appearance. Desert-like landscaping increases the drama heightened by the strict symmetry of windows.

Once inside, however, Simon pivots to a light-flooded, color-charged experience in the open-plan, 3,200-square-foot home that has four bedrooms, three and a half baths as well as a home office.

“I was inspired by Moroccan riads, with a beautiful courtyard hidden behind a simple exterior. And I wanted to create that feeling of a great boutique hotel in the back yard,” she says.

But even though Simon’s goal was to create a hotel-like home, it was far from what she found in the first place. Instead, Sara and her developer/husband Sven Simon, co-founder of San Diego-based DasMod, discovered a 750-square-foot bungalow lost in an overgrown lot. “The front of the house was totally obscured by giant yucca and agave plants, and the backyard was just dirt and tumbleweeds,” says Simon.

The couple decided to anchor the property with a new home while transforming the original structure into the two-bedroom, one-bathroom guest house that offers yet more livable space.

Today the property fuses resort-inspired amenities with high-function features. The expansive, lushly landscaped backyard is anchored by an above-ground pool and sauna complete with built-in day beds, benches, and a firepit, tailor-made for both small- and large-scale entertaining. “The plants and trees are what give this garden the feeling that it’s been here for more than a year,” says Simon who collaborated with Cheryl Kellough of Sage Garden Design in Calabasas.

Inside the home, Simon makes even more daring design decisions. In the kitchen, she swapped out expected finishes for countertops that featured lava stone stacked with terrazzo and birch cabinets stained a dramatic matte black. Nearby, the dining room boasts a built-in, plum-toned credenza. Simon, however, saved her biggest color hits for the bathrooms where she deployed stone, tile, and paint in saturated, often unmatching tones.

Case in point: In the downstairs powder room, she paired sorbet Fireclay tile with a baby blue sink from Kast and set it all off against a canvas of a terrazzo half-wall. She even brought speakers into the space to reinforce the resort feel. The kids’ bathroom marries black and yellow while another creates a confection of pastel pinks.