FRESH FACE ON TRADITIONAL STYLE

Produced by Krissa Rossbund

It’s easy for a designer to maintain balance on the flatlands, where the style geography is totally traditional or meticulously modern. Navigating terrain that is neither one nor the other requires a more calibrated compass. Without it, transitional design can plunge into a purgatory where neither/nor translates as nothing much. No such danger for furniture and interior designer Megan Perry Yorgancioglu. The home she designed in Izmir, Turkey, for herself and her husband, Doruk, is a cunning combo of classic and cool.

“I’m a modern traditionalist. I definitely admire and respect the traditional style, but then I do love modern, clean-lined furniture and draperies,” explains Megan. “When we renovated our 14-year-old home last year, we wanted to keep the architectural details traditional—the moldings, doors, and wall paneling. But we wanted the furnishings and accents to be fresh and clean-lined.”

Freshness was a shoo-in. Megan handpicked pieces she had designed from scratch for the family furniture business. She is creative director and Doruk is CEO of Dorya USA, which they launched in 2010. Headquartered in Miami, it’s the American expansion of the handcrafted furniture company that Doruk’s parents started 30 years ago in Turkey.

The young couple met at George Washington University when she was studying interior design and he was honing up on international affairs. Now they spend half their time in Turkey, where the furniture is manufactured, and the rest in Florida, running the business. So far, it’s a full-throttle enterprise, with a showroom open year-round in High Point, North Carolina, in addition to the Miami base.

In Turkey, the Dorya factory is just outside Izmir, only 30 minutes from Megan and Doruk’s front door. So approaching the home as a foil for showcasing the family’s furniture was a given. So was taking risks. 

“I like to do things a little funkier and differently, with special attention to the details. I wanted this house to be a little more daring than most,” says Megan.

A firm believer in first impressions, she seized on a derring-do design for the entry and never let go. The turquoise chest “was my daring moment,” she says. “It gives so much energy to the entrance and is a preview of what follows.”

As in more pops of color. A turquoise elephant mosaic from a Paris trade show is the family room’s splashy focal point. “It’s where I started the design for the living and family rooms. It’s always good to have something to start from, whether it be a painting or a fabric. From there, I designed most of the other furniture from scratch.” She introduced the basic black-and-white palette in the checker- board floor tiles of the entry, then extended them to the kitchen. Turquoise accents and the fiery Chinese red in the guest room add punch. “For consistency and flow, I kept the palette simple. You should be to able to throw all of the fabrics and colors in your home into a pile and have them look good together,” Megan instructs.

In the modernist tradition, furniture designs emphasize function. “The family room’s ottoman has inset wheels, as does the cocktail table, so you can position the table to use for eating or pull the ottoman up to the sofa like a daybed for lounging,” she explains. “The whole area is very functional.”

Strong, spare furniture lines can read cool. For counterpoint, every room was wallpapered. “The different textures of wallpaper just make the home so much warmer,” observes Megan. “And I love playing around with the patterns.”

Ultimately, the goal was a “just right” design. “I didn’t want the interior to have that cold, modern feeling or the very traditional feel. This is just in the middle—a warm traditional home with a contemporary twist. I also didn’t want it too masculine or too feminine but somewhere in between, so we both could enjoy every room.”

With grace and daring, Megan walked the trad-mod tightrope, no safety net in sight—and none needed.