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Who is Mason St. Peter?

California-native architect and designer Mason St. Peter is a luminary of indoor/outdoor living. Minimalistic with a reverence for raw materials and unobtrusive construction, his designs are emblematic of the California lifestyle they’re designed around and an inspiration for our own collection.

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BM: What sparked your interest in design, and how did you get your start?

MSP: I went to architecture school a little later in life, when I was 24, and it all just kind of fell into place with the guidance and influence of good teachers. I started learning about the masters — people who made that connection between nature and design early on. This included the Viennese architects who came over to work for Frank Lloyd Wright, like Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra. Schindler was bohemian in a classic California way, helping to pioneer that idea. Neutra was a little more rigid but had the same principles when it came to designing.

There was an intersection between what I learned in school and my own personal experience. I didn’t know this was a California thing until I entered architecture school. Once I put two and two together, it was like, well yeah, of course! Here we are in one of five Mediterranean climates in the world, and you can have this kind of space and lifestyle, and it all requires very little maintenance. With my work, I try to let the space and materials be and do what they’re meant to naturally without adding too much in an effort to make them into something else.

Here we are in one of five Mediterranean climates in the world, and you can have this kind of space and lifestyle, and it all requires very little maintenance.
BM: Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for people who have the entrepreneurial spirit and passion but maybe don’t know how to start?

MSP: Before I started my career, I opened a shop in San Francisco in 2009 called General Store. We were in a recession, and there were no indications that this was a good idea, but a space opened up where the old neighborhood video store had been. I started out with this very simple idea of trying to give something back to my community but also trying to create a space for myself, and it evolved into a successful retail store that we later expanded with a second location in Venice. That was an idea that everyone said wasn’t going to succeed, but I just went for it anyway, and in the end, it all worked out. So if you have an idea and you want to put it out there, you just gotta do it.