San Francisco designer Stephen Shubel grew up in Northern California, but his heart was always 5,000 miles away. A true-blue admirer of all things French, he prizes classical French architecture, adores Louis XVI chairs, and can’t get enough Directoire tables, Napoléon III gilded stools, Limoges porcelain, and Gallic paintings. This continental influence permeates all of Shubel’s interiors for a coterie of devoted clients throughout the Bay Area.

In 1998, after many trips to Paris, Shubel acquired a handsome limestone townhouse in Brion, a small town southwest of the capital city. He spent most of his summers there, designing and scooping up treasures for his clients. Then, two years ago, wanting to experience life as a Parisian, he set up a pied-à-terre in a 400-year-old mansion near the Place des Vosges. Whether he was taking coffee at the Café Marly, getting lost in some obscure corner of the Left Bank, or poking around the Loire Valley, his time in France was “invigorating and inspiring.”

There was just one problem: Back in California, business was booming. “I’m so busy here working for clients, I don’t have time to go to France as much,” he says. So Shubel decided to sell his country house and close his Paris apartment—and re-create it in San Francisco.

Shubel spent his childhood in Castro Valley, studied design briefly at California College of the Arts, and jumped into the design world as an assistant to a Piedmont designer at age 20. He started his own firm, Stephen Shubel Design, in 1975. “French style is fantastic for San Francisco, because it can be so fresh, relaxed, and cosmopolitan,” says Shubel. He particularly loves the way French designers mix fine antiques with contemporary art, and expensive pieces with flea-market finds. “My French experience colors every design decision I make,” he says.

The 1,200-square-foot loft the designer recently purchased on a gritty South of Market street is a testament to his aesthetic. Despite the apartment’s rough-and-tumble location, its interior—with 16-foot ceilings, an enclosed terrace, and a mezzanine bedroom—feels very Parisian.

To decorate his new live/work studio, Shubel emptied out his Paris apartment and shipped many of the contents back home, including his collection of gold-framed mirrors, two grand banquettes, art deco tables, and country-flea-market paintings and prints. To this rich mix, he added a white lacquer table from West Elm that cost $299, an inexpensive white-plaster look-alike tripod side table from Oly, and a library of design books. Desks and shelves from IKEA and West Elm also contribute to the chic effect.

“Rooms often benefit from something a little subversive, and shouldn’t be all gilt-edged,” says Shubel. “It is this contrast and the relaxed way of putting it together that make a room come to life. I wanted my studio to have a European sensibility that would be full of light.” The French pieces look right at home in their new surroundings, framed with shades made from 70 yards of natural cotton sailcloth.

“My goal is freshness and elegance, without being too trendy or too formal. The worst decorating mistake you can make is to design rooms that look too ‘done,’ too serious,” Shubel says. He likes to add chairs that seem as if they’ve spent centuries in a dusty château attic, along with cozy places where his rescued papillon, Rosie, can observe the comings and goings of Shubel’s staff members, clients, and friends.

And more is always on the way. Shipments of paintings, sculptures, rare etchings and engravings, decorative porcelain, and country linens provide endless new fodder for the walls and tables of Shubel’s loft. “I’ve taken my tour through the history of France,” he says. “Now I’ve brought it all home to SoMa.”