Published in ‘The Collection, BY COMPASS’ Summer 2019
Anthony Wilder—The Architectural Designer with a sixth sense for personalization.
No more than five minutes after meeting Anthony Wilder, I found myself at the center of his latest idea: a custom home designed for yours truly. I had just asked Anthony about the concept of personalization, curious to get a glimpse into his process for creating spaces so intricately tailored to a distinct lifestyle or set of needs.
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Interior Photo: Angie Seckinger
“Why don’t you give me a foundation, and I’ll show you a finished house in 11 days.”
-Anthony Wilder
“When you’re launching a new project, it really depends on the person,” Anthony starts. “If I was going to design your house, for example, I would probably say you wanted fresh, clean lines — something that’s forward-thinking.”
Now, you’re probably wondering how he so swiftly — and astutely — distilled what little he knew of me at that moment into a snapshot of my dream home. I was too. But I quickly learned that just like his idols Eero Saarinen and Renzo Piano, Anthony is one of those people who was just born with it.
From a young age, instinct has been the driving force of Anthony’s life. At 14, he ambled into a woodshop in California, where he was instantly mesmerized by the smells and textures that enveloped him in wonder and warmth. Soon after, while working on his first construction site, Anthony realized he had found his calling. At 17, he started his own company. “I didn’t know what I was doing at the time,” Anthony recalls, “but I told the guy that was building the houses — ‘Look, I know these plans. I can build them with my eyes closed. Why don’t you give me a foundation, and I’ll show you a finished house in 11 days.’ 11 days later, the house was complete, and the trajectory of Anthony’s impressive career began to take shape.
Today, Anthony’s award-winning design and build firm — specializing in new construction, interior design, and licensed in architecture — is home to 50 people across the DMV. The same intuition that helped Anthony to discover his life’s passion is now reflected in every new project he embarks on with clients, from facade revival to landscape design. Standing in the archway of a home he renovated in 2001, Anthony describes the setting as an “imaginarium, or a manifestation of [the couple’s] travels. I saw their antiquities,” Anthony recalls, “and I got excited about all the possibilities I could explore. They were so open and accepting, which allowed me to express their lives vicariously through architecture.”
But make no mistake, Anthony doesn’t see his gift for perception as a reason to take any shortcuts in his process. If anything, his favorite part of what he does is getting to know the people behind a project, and creating bespoke outcomes for them along the way. In truth, working with clients is almost a spiritual practice for Anthony. “When you really get along with someone, you want to give them gifts. So if your clients are people you truly care about, the work will reflect that,” he adds.
Although his career is built on finding unity in creation, Anthony also sees the beauty in imperfection. At one point, he relayed an old story of a Zen master who broke his favorite tea cup deliberately. When asked why he did so, the Zen master replied, “I wanted it to be unlike any other tea cup you’ve ever seen.” While Anthony isn’t necessarily in the business of breaking things, he does believe that his work is grounded in humanity above all, and informed by the nuances that make one person different from any other — not at all unlike the places they call home. “Self-love is very important,” Anthony explains. “If you can be positive and learn to accept your foibles — because everyone has a zillion — you’ll come to realize that they are actually gifts.”
In his spare time, Anthony practices transcendental meditation. “It helps me to visualize what I want, and where I see myself in 5 years, in 10 years, and so on. These days, people rarely stop to take in what’s going on around them on a deeper level,” he points out. That’s certainly true in this day and age, where information travels at the touch of a fingertip. But, on the off-chance you happen to find a spare moment to take a step back...well, I imagine the world might begin to look a little bit more like what Anthony Wilder sees.
@anthonywilderdesignbuild
anthonywilder.com
