Penny Shawback
FOUNDER
"In the spaces we design, we watch lives take root, flourish, and thrive."
Penny Shawback has spent her whole life working in the design profession. From an early attunement to every single space she encountered through decades of developing a deep and intimate knowledge of interior design practice through studying architecture and art. She has developed a singular passion and enthusiasm for the relationship between how spaces look and how they energetically feel. Her enthusiastic and committed Shawback Design team share this passion.
Penny believes that the best projects are those that fully integrate architecture, landscape, and lifestyle. For over three decades, she has felt honored and inspired to work with a unique and select group of clients, establishing life-long relationships and growing with each family. For Penny, her work has brought her boundless gratitude and joy. Particularly from getting to work with talented architects, builders, artisans, and all the clients who have changed her life due to their work together.
Shawback Real Estate Office
Redwood City, CA 1958
Celebrating 45 years of design excellence
Our founder Penny Shawback opened Shawback Design in 1981. She grew up in Redwood City, where her father, Charlie Shawback's realty company, introduced her to the real estate and construction fields. To decorate the circa 1958 office, Penny's mother, Mary, upholstered the desks and created a faux window by painting a landscape flanked with shutters. Shawback Design continues the family tradition and now runs in partnership with Penny's son Damon Savoia and daughter-in-law Julie Savoia.
As a team, we are an interior design firm recognized for our deep commitment to our clients. Shawback Design believes in growing with our clients and expressing intricately considered spaces that actively welcome their desires, hopes, dreams, families, and lives. We see our role as facilitators, producing interiors that invite and encourage the human experience in all its forms.
We dedicate ourselves to every stage of the process: from sourcing land to finding the perfect architectural partner, to committing ourselves equally to process and style, to offering a complete turn-key experience on completion (ask us about our "grand reveals"). We grow with our clients over time, often working on multiple projects in different states over many years (sometimes decades). Our work focus spans the residential and hospitality worlds.
Shawback Design's work has been featured in and on the covers of DWELL, Modern Luxury Interiors, LUXE, Metropolis, California Homes Magazine, CA Home + Design, and several books. The firm has received awards such as “Best Lakeside Residence Lake Tahoe,” been recognized on the LUXE Gold List, and collaborated with renowned architectural firms including Olson Kundig, Field Architecture, Walker Warner Architects, Signum Architecture, John Maniscalco Architecture, and Surface Design. Shawback Design is headquartered in Napa, California.
