See How a Leafy and Lush Home Got Infused With Old World Charm | Architectural Digest

When it arrived to her possess family’s lush and leafy oasis in Venice, Los Angeles–based designer Kate Driver started off off, surprisingly, by abandoning her aesthetic roots. In September 2016, she and her spouse spontaneously deserted their leasing life—and Driver’s lengthy-held dream of possessing an “old residence with character,” not compared with the Georgian-type properties of her indigenous Atlanta—to dive head-initial into owning a new-make dwelling with no real architectural soul to converse of.

“But when we walked via, it felt like no spot we had at any time been right before, like a tropical wonderland,” Driver, the founder of the inside structure studio West Haddon Corridor, states of the home’s soaring windows and proliferation of palms. “So that night we felt definitely encouraged. We stayed up till 3 a.m. googling ‘how to get a house’ and set in an offer you the following day.”

In the eyes of a lesser visionary, the house’s grand 25-foot heights and 4,500 sq. toes of concrete floors could have felt overpowering to furnish. But for Driver, who at the time had just uncovered she was pregnant with her first child, the home was merely a blank canvas. “I just became obsessed with making the dwelling experience like it has been below eternally,” she says.

Introducing classic and antique items was the easiest—but not the only—way. “I’ve been accumulating pieces from unique eras and various pieces of the globe for a extended time,” states Driver, who has prolonged admired Roman couturier Giambattista Valli’s eclectic cache, exhibited in his Paris condominium in seemingly improvised manner.

“I aspire to that form of layering—rich and textured but extremely individual,” Driver claims. To wit, the living area in Driver’s dwelling is a worldly pastiche of collectibles previous and new, manifesting as a spontaneous and synergistic tableau. A somewhat prim Fritz Hansen midcentury sofa, coated in lush Liberty floral velvet, delivers a degree of decorum offset by the humorous geometry of Ettore Sottsass’s famed Tahiti lamp, a playful postmodern interpretation of a flamingo. In other places, the gravity of twin walnut coffee tables by West Haddon Hall—emblematic of Driver’s desire to design and style items that are “distinctive and purposeful anchors in the visible atmosphere”—are challenged by the charming granny fringe of an antique floor lamp or American printmaker Denise Kupferschmidt’s punchy cobalt painting. That portray, in change, sourced by Driver’s friend, art advisor Illa Gaunt, is a nod to the loose varieties of Henri Matisse.

The household is constantly in flux, increasing and contracting with parts and people today: For instance, the decorator’s far more tenured objects often depart for clients’ residences when fresh finds like the Roger Capron tiled espresso table in the visitor apartment, or the entryway’s concrete Willy Guhl planter, get there from global marketplaces like Marché Paul Bert, Driver’s beloved Paris flea. And when a legion of buddies will come around for a taco brunch, like they did recently to fête Driver’s now-eldest kid on her fifth birthday, often they don’t depart right until right after dinner. In accordance to Driver, these accidental all-working day occasions owe their duration and simplicity to the home’s purely natural warmth and overall flexibility.

“I appreciate building areas that experience personal for a larger sized team but also vibrant and comprehensive for a more compact group,” suggests Driver. The upstairs landing was remodeled into an intimate sitting place, the place the designer put a 1970s Luis Montiel tapestry—a “retro rainbow,” as Driver phone calls it—in distinction to a needlework rug with a much more major palette. An out of doors eating home, which hosts the resident family of 5 on West Haddon Hall picnic benches as conveniently as it accommodates 25 visiting taco buffs, is heated and suitably foliaged, anticipating the uncommon celebration when Southern California’s perpetual balminess—and the garden’s perennial palmy-ness—aren’t up to al fresco dining criteria.

As it turns out, coming up with a residence that feels like it’s been all around endlessly is instantly proportional to the degree of languor exhibited by visitors who simply cannot believe of a additional enjoyable put to commit their entire day. ”I adore that it feels like household to them far too,” Driver states.