Project: New Build With 2 Kitchens

This new construction home is an entertainer’s dream with 2 full kitchens.

The main kitchen offers solutions for every function of daily life while the butler’s pantry, also a fully functioning kitchen, offers additional cooking and prep options. This homeowner is a smart host knowing that having a second kitchen out of sight for the family or staff to prep for parties of any size leaves the main kitchen clean and sparkling extending the entertaining space of the living area right into the kitchen.

The ask: create a minimal but warm kitchen with no wall cabinetry and plenty of entertaining space with a butler’s pantry with fully functioning kitchen and refrigerated wine cellar room.

The overall concept of the Main Kitchen was a very open, airy design with no wall cabinets.

The stunning home plan called for a massive pass-thru window to the exterior courtyard off the kitchen. So we planned a credenza-style bank of cabinetry with many drawers to hold most of their dishes and serving ware using several eggersmann organizational Boxtec drawer accessories.

We offset this large cabinet under the pass-thru window with a custom Schmalenbach tall bar cabinet semi-recessed into the wall to give the appearance of it floating on the wall. It has a gloss interior and a tilt-down bar cabinet inside for mixing and serving drinks.

For added convenience while entertaining, we added beverage drawers, an ice machine, and bar sink to the pass-thru countertop.

The smoked glass front adds a touch of elegance and a different finish to the other cabinetry in the room.

The stove hood was designed to be a monolithic block in eggersmann’s dark aluminum finish. It was kept seamless on the façade, but as a surprising and useful hidden feature, we placed two side-facing cabinets on the ends of the hood for usable storage on either side of the Miele hood insert in the center. The homeowner did not want typical wall cabinets for this wall, so we came up with an alternative solution to give a bit of extra storage space, but hidden.

The main cabinet finish is Pine Grey Horizontal Woodgrain Laminate cabinetry. The tall wall, however, complements the woodgrain finish using a custom-color Matt Lacquer. This custom Matt Lacquer creates more balance in finishes and is similar to the dark aluminum hood. Even though these design elements are two different finishes, they look the same.

We kept the main kitchen clean and minimal in every detail. The main kitchen has an induction cooktop and a teppanyaki. It has a fully integrated fridge and freezer on the tall wall, as well as tall pantry cabinets, warming drawer, and Miele appliances including steam oven, coffee system, full-size oven, speed oven.

A top row with functional horizontal fold-up doors adds extra storage along with the taller cabinetry that complements the scale of the high barrel-vaulted ceiling.

The butler’s pantry functions as secondary full kitchen or “dirty kitchen” with all the appliances and storage needed for food prep, cooking, and serving staging.

We chose a full gas range to provide another cooking style option. Bi-fold lift wall cabinets created wall cabinet storage out of the main room’s view. To round out this butler pantry turned operational kitchen, we added an additional full-size built-in fridge, more pantry storage, and broom cabinet with cleaning supply storage cabinets as well as full-size sink and dishwasher.

Tucked off the butler’s pantry is a full-size refrigerated wine room featuring a large glass-pane door making the wine storage a virtual art piece and definitely a conversation starter as it can be glimpsed when passing through the main kitchen.

The solutions: The house was built by Akins Homes. The interior designer was Kristin Nugent. The eggersmann LA design team and these talented resources worked directly with the homeowners to plan this main kitchen and butler’s pantry with refrigerated wine cellar room.