Peter Christiansen Valli
Feature: Feelin' Groovy
March 1, 2007
It takes a shagalicious gunslinger not to blink twice when staring down this
groovy lair in the urban jungle of the Hollywood Hills, but according to
designer Erika Brunson, her client is just that kind of rough-and-tumble,
cool-as-a-Jeff Koons-cucumber aesthete.
A bachelor in his early 30s, an
investment executive for a large, privately held conglomerate as well as a man
about Beverly Hills and Hollywood haute spots, Brunson’s client has a head for
business and an eye for design, be it fashion, architecture or interiors. “He’s
always way ahead of his time,” says Brunson, who, having designed homes for the
client’s father over many years, is in a position to know. “He was into skulls
and crossbones way before anybody else, and when he became interested in 1960s
and ’70s design, very few of the trendy shop owners on Melrose or Beverly
Boulevard knew what he was talking about.”
Nevertheless, neither client nor
designer was daunted by the task of transforming a 1960s California ranch house
into a popinjay pad, both raffish and downright naughty. First, they stripped
the place down, leaving only some period tile and a platform for their vision. Next they compiled a collection of
originals by the greats of 1950s to mid-1970s design—Eero Aarnio’s suspended
Bubble and Formula chairs, Pierre Paulin’s Ribbon chair, Erwin and Estelle
Laverne’s Lilly and Lotus chairs, Eero Saarinen’s Tulip chairs, as well as
pieces from Danish designer Verner Panton, the master of the fluid, futuristic
style of the 1960s that introduced the Pop aesthetic to furniture and interiors.
This is no coincidence in a house where walls in the game room and den are hung
with Pop-goes-the-Warhol skull prints, and yellow Warholesque banana leaves
unfurl across the public rooms.
Reproductions such as that of Arne Jacobsen’s
iconic 1957 Swan chair in the game room were kosher, too, but other pieces, like
the den’s oversize white coffee table and sofa sectional, had to be specifically
designed and manufactured. Fortunately, Brunson has her own line of custom
furniture carried in showrooms nationally. Unfortunately, it focuses on
eye-openers of more traditional tastes, such as Louis XV chairs based on
originals from the renowned Wrightsman collection in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art and a Billy Baldwin–designed low table for Jackie Kennedy, pieces that
fit more easily in the homes of Brun-son’s other clients, which include the
Saudi royal family and European industrialists.
Turning the dial up or
down, however, is not a problem for Brunson, a cosmopolite born in Germany and a
longtime resident of Bel-Air who is thoroughly familiar with everything from
midcentury through disco design. “If a client is good and gives you something to
run with, you can go in a whole new direction,” Brunson says. Even if that
direction leads to an off-road adventure in color, pattern and textures ranging
from shiny, high-gloss tables to dense shag rugs.
Take the den, dining, game
and living rooms. United by a paucity of walls, primary colors, white tile
floors and the banana-leaf splits covering walls, valances, vertical blinds and
even doors, these rooms can be viewed as an indoor garden—with brilliant color
bursts as the flower beds that define each discrete area on a floor of white
space. Floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding doors, flush with a green lawn
and aqua pool defined by an undulating surround and circular walkways leading to blue and yellow Formula chairs, then onward to
serpentine hedges and blue skies framing Los Angeles—from downtown to the
ocean—further unite indoors and out. But on another level, this fusion asks that
the very concept of boundaries be rethought. Squint your eyes and the
composition is no longer about defined space, but abstraction, color and form.
More cosseted (and concrete) is the master bedroom, where dark colors and
plush textures absorb light, muffle sound and invite rest, all in a palette
particular to the
period—chocolate, rich reds, burgundy and burnt orange. Even the Pop Art–inspired flower-print drapes and the bed’s tufted
faux-snakeskin footboard soothe, as do the Ribbon and Bubble chairs in the room
and Formula chairs outside, all of which seem less like objects for use than
sculptures for meditation.
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