The living room in Peter Donnelly's condominium in the new Concord development has expansive views to the south and west from Seattle. The coffee tables, foreground, were prototypes for designer Steven Hensel's Studio Steel furniture series. The piano belonged to influential designer Hope Foote.

The Concord is one of myriad new apartment and condominium projects now rising near the waterfront north of downtown Seattle.

Its most enthusiastic spokesman is Peter Donnelly, who has helped the fund grow substantially during his 12 years as president.

As one might expect, Donnelly's long association with artists and the arts - he spent 21 years at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and three years at the Dallas Theatre Center before taking on his present post - has shaped his homes and his lifestyle.

Donnelly lived on Queen Anne Hill from 1969 to 1979 in a Mediterranean revival house with a view to Elliott Bay. He loved it, but moved to a larger home on Capitol Hill more suited to the entertainment and fund raising that filled his life as producing director of the Seattle Rep during the development of the Bagley Wright Theatre.

He moved to Dallas in 1986 and, when he returned to Seattle to accept the position at the Corporate Council for the Arts, commissioned Olson Sundberg Architects to design a house on Capitol Hill, which he occupied from 1992 until last year, when he decided to downsize. At that point, he discovered that a condominium doesn't replace "home" without some major adjustments, both psychologically and physically. 

He loved the clean-cut modernist outward appearance of the Concord, a new development on First Avenue, but his first look at a two-bedroom unit left him thinking it was simply too small.

"I didn't think I could live in it, condense myself this much at this point in my life," he said. "Condominiums are really designed for people without histories. And when you reach a certain point, you carry a history you want to stay in touch with."

The Concord units were then in the framing stages. On the other side of the two-bedroom unit was another room. He asked the real-estate agent about it and learned it was a separate studio apartment for which a sale had just fallen through.

Therein was the solution. At the suggestion of Steven Hensel of Hensel Design Studios, with whom Donnelly had worked for years, Donnelly combined the studio and the hallway leading to it with the unit he was considering.

The marriage of the two units has given Donnelly the space he needs and the advantages of living within a short walk of restaurants, his office, the Seattle Rep and Seattle Opera. He looks forward to the creation of a new sculpture park he will overlook from his terrace.

But in moving from 3,000 square feet to 2,000 square feet, certain things had to go.

"What I love about downscaling is the challenge of editing," Donnelly says, "not just in terms of stuff, but in terms of experiences you don't want to do anymore. It's a certain part of maturity.

Hensel's signature metallic finishes are visible in the foyer's bronze-finished oculus. The lighting fixture is Murano glass.

"But there were certain things that I would not give up, like my dining table. Friends said I would never find a space large enough. But with two bedrooms plus the studio, I've been able to convert one of the bedrooms into a library and the other into a formal dining room."

He felt the same attachment to a piano that once belonged to Hope Foote, whose influence as head of the interior-design program at the University of Washington touched a generation of local designers. Donnelly knew her, and the piano found a place in what would have been the dining area of the two-bedroom unit.

The new condominium is filled with furniture that comes of a lifetime of collecting English antiques and contemporary pieces. Many were selected by Hensel, who did the interiors for Donnelly's condominium in Dallas and the new home on Capitol Hill. When Hensel developed Studio Steel, Donnelly bought his first prototype glass-and-steel coffee tables.

Hensel points out that these tables, as well as furniture from Dallas and from Capitol Hill, are still in Donnelly's life. "He doesn't throw things out. He adds to his collection. Virtually every piece has been with him."

Many have been transformed with new fabrics. The living-room couch shed its 1986 silk for a textured tapestry fabric; wing chairs in the library were re-upholstered in leather; the faded silk dining-room chairs are newly recovered, and the bed in the master bedroom is in its third incarnation.

Hensel is known for choosing warm, rich, earthy colors, natural fabrics and metallic silver, copper and bronze finishes. The dining room and the library exemplify his style.

Early glass works by William Morris and Dale Chihuly are displayed on a table to the right of the living-room fireplace.

The formality of the dining room was important, Hensel explains. "Peter loves to cook, and entertains quite a bit with formal dinner parties. He wants the dining experience to be a surprise after the cocktail hour - not just a table out for all to see." Donnelly's Welsh antique table defines the room. A dropped ceiling is painted metallic bronze, with a dramatic champagne-bronze dome rising at its center.

The library is a cocoonlike space crafted from the master bedroom of the two-bedroom unit. By shrinking the bathroom, Hensel's design lengthened the library. By adding a sliding door, a guest has a private suite. Dark cherry for cabinets and bookcases, camel-colored leather for chairs and gold-patterned upholstery for the sleeper sofa reinforce the clubby ambiance of the room, which is filled with awards, memorabilia and photographs that Donnelly was never able to adequately display in his earlier homes.

Of his collecting, Donnelly insists, "I just bought stuff I liked that fit the space. There is no real point of view."

Yet, with selective editing and the skills of a talented interior designer, much of what he has collected now comes together as a story told by his new home. Lawrence Kreisman is program director for Historic Seattle and director of "Viewpoints," the tour program of the Seattle Architectural Foundation. Benjamin Benschneider is staff photographer for Pacific Northwest magazine.

Supporting the Arts
The Corporate Council for the Arts/Arts Fund is a united arts drive funded by contributions from 600 corporations, as well as foundations and individuals. In King and Pierce counties, council funding ranges from small start-up grants to $350,000 grants to major arts groups. In 1995-96 the council was given one-third ownership of KING-FM. Profits from the station are divided among the Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony and the Corporate Council for the Arts. The council share is redistributed to musical organizations. Additional information: 206-281-9050.