In design, as in gambling, sometimes you’ve gotta know when to fold ’em. In this case, the subject in question was a stately Tudor-style house that one international family had called home since the 1970s—and was determined to restore and update for modern life. Alas, between soaring costs and logistical complications, a renovation wasn’t in the cards. The owners ultimately decided to tear down the structure to make way for a new one, an Italianate mansion that was already halfway through construction when AD100 alum Madeline Stuart came on board, after a previous designer had been cut loose. It’s enough to make any designer skittish. But the Los Angeles designer had some luck on her side.
“Los Angeles teems with faux-Italianate residences, scattered throughout its most sought-after neighborhoods,” she writes in her new book No Place Like Home, released this month by Rizzoli. “These homes borrow liberally from the architectural dictionary, and most are a hodgepodge of pseudo-Mediterranean gestures.... Fortunately, my clients were extremely familiar with significant examples of Italianate architecture.... This was never going to be a house that could be described as Tuscan modern.”
Carefully curated antiques—including a pair of 18th-century Tuscan lanterns, 18th-century Italian bergère chairs, and 1960s tole lamps—surround a gilt bronze cocktail table made by French artist Paula Swinnen in the living room.
Designed by Mark Ferguson and Scott Sottile of New York–based architectural firm Ferguson & Shamamian, the elegant structure provided Stuart with a classical canvas to create gracious yet inviting spaces filled with antiques and traditional details. Instead of terra-cotta touches, a calming color palette of whites, blues, and grays establishes a serene backdrop for everyday life, while sumptuous textures imbue the space with intimacy and make rooms—with their lofty ceilings and generous proportions—feel warm and welcoming. Stuart covered the walls in opulent textiles and painterly effects to create depth and dimension within the rooms: A stenciled pattern was nearly sanded away to add nuance and softness to the living room; walnut paneling was installed in the library for coziness; and the master bedroom is enveloped in a graceful silk strié for a cocoon-like atmosphere—and added heavily researched custom pieces that were designed to be stylistically accurate but also make the house comfortable for family gatherings and quiet moments alike. “People like to hunker down and feel cozy,” Stuart says. “No one wants to feel like a guest in the palace.”
But while the house has a deep connection to its Italian roots, surprises abound. A powder room inspired by the Greek Revival details on view in the South of France’s Villa Kérylos features a 1930s marble pedestal sink that feels as though it bubbled from the depths of the ocean, with original tigereye fixtures that speak to the intricate mosaic-tile flooring and lime-washed walls. The dining room is another bold stroke, with its jaw-dropping Gracie wallpaper hand-painted with birds and branches and its ornamental 1960s Murano glass chandelier. But it was important that such flourishes exist on the periphery rather than eclipsing the main space. “Public rooms have to represent a cohesive voice,” she says. “A house becomes visually cacophonous if there isn’t some degree of consistency.”
The pool pergola features a seating area anchored by woven seagrass furnishings and an earthy stone table.
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What was most consistent was the degree of dedication and the spirit of collaboration that prevailed among all parties from the project’s inception. Stuart recalls the day when the dealers at Naga Antiques drove a hulking pair of Chinese screens, now on display in the living room, to Manhattan from their Hudson, New York, headquarters with zero assurances of a sale, after the homeowners couldn’t fit a trip upstate into the schedule. “There the clients and I were, standing on the sidewalk with these huge Chinese screens coming out of a van, blocking pedestrian traffic on East 56th Street,” says Stuart. “It certainly wasn’t ideal viewing conditions. But the clients took a risk, and they just look incredible there.” In the end, you’ve gotta know when to hold ‘em too.