At his Koreatown apartment, Peter Gargagliano turns a 750-square-foot terrace into a series of outdoor rooms

Gargagliano reads on his converted terrace. The production designer can make a Vanity Fair spread look perfect, but when it came to his own home, the terrace had long been a wasteland of chipped plastic pots, mismatched flea market furniture, bright green Astroturf and roses clinging to life. “I think the garden was a little alien to him, so he couldn’t approach it the way he usually approaches his other projects. Everything burned and died,” says Dustin Gimbel, a landscape designer who helped with the makeover. “Peter’s terrace was a Home Depot earthquake.”  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

With a budget of about $20,000, Gargagliano called upon friend Annette Gutierrez, co-owner of the Atwater Village garden design store Pot-ted, and Gimbel, owner of Second Nature Garden Design, to bring his terrace to life. His first mandate: to create a series of distinct outdoor rooms for the 750-square-foot space. The second: Make everything portable, so that the furnishings could move with him if he decided to buy his own place.

Gutierrez carved out “rooms” by judiciously arranging rectangular metal planters and lightweight oversized pots so that they formed walls. “Most people’s inclination is to put things on the edges,” she says. “That just makes a space feel smaller. By arranging rooms, we give people a path to follow. It makes this terrace feel huge.”

The main outdoor room sits under the apartment’s original metal awning, furnished with a couch, chairs and coffee table that would look perfectly at home indoors. The seating is covered in fade-resistant chenille Sunbrella fabric -- comfortable in summer and cozy in winter, Gutierrez says.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Gargagliano wanted the rooftop garden to feel like a “mini adventure,” so Gimbel layered plants of different sizes. “Whimsy is really important to Peter,” the landscape designer says. “We picked plants that a fairy might like, flowers that had tiny details that your eye could rest on. He hoped the garden would make you feel like a child going on this amazing journey.”  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“He had no limitation in terms of style,” Gutierrez says. “He loves Mediterranean, Asian and midcentury.”

Gargagliano’s buzzwords: Bohemian, eclectic, magical.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“Peter wanted all these spatial vignettes -- separate places that would offer different vistas and make you feel as if you had different places just to be,” Gutierrez says.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Wandering the Rose Bowl flea market, Gargagliano found six chairs constructed from wood stumps. He commissioned a carpenter friend to make a matching table with a Korean barbecue stuck in the middle. “Since we’re in Koreatown, I can just run down to the local supermarket and pick up a platter of spicy marinated meat ready to grill,” Gargagliano says.

A kitchen garden by the Korean barbecue is fragrant with sage, mint, rosemary and cilantro.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

A vent pipe is camouflaged by the wooden stand underneath the concrete fountain. “You know what they say about an eyesore,” Gargagliano says. “You either hide it or paint it red.” The wooden daybed is custom made, a place for outdoor naps.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“I wanted the space to look lived in, to show history and evolution, to have layers,” Gargagliano says. He and Gutierrez discussed ways to integrate old furnishings with new pieces, as well as strategies for obscuring drawbacks of the space.

Here, a redwood screen blocks one of the less-than-spectacular views and provides some additional privacy. Midcentury-inspired chairs surround a tile-topped Pot-ted table, creating a breakfast nook with a different view. Gargagliano scavenged lamps for the terrace from garbage dumps.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

From inside, the world beyond looks like anything but an apartment terrace near the city’s urban core.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The other living room.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

An eclectic vibe inside the house to match the vintage-tinged look outside.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

More of the living room inside Gargagliano’s apartment.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The living room leads to the home office.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

A self-described packrat, Gargagliano has filled his apartment with souvenirs of his travels. He still has his childhood stuffed animals (arranged carefully in a wicker basket).  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The view from the office to the terrace. Six months after Gargagliano embarked on the project, the terrace has done more than provide the couple with more space. Visitors now include hummingbirds, sparrows, nuthatches, even a hawk. “Once I even saw the hawk swoop down and tear a sparrow apart for lunch,” Gargagliano says. “It was like a scene from ‘Wild Kingdom.’ ”  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“People thought I was crazy investing money in a rental,” Gargagliano says. “Now they can’t believe the oasis we’ve created. They come up here and go, ‘Oh!’ It’s a really good payoff.”

Does he ever regret not investing the money in a pad of his own?

“No,” he says with a shrug. “There was never a better place for me. I never got bored of being here. I rediscover the garden constantly, and the world — Koreatown — just keeps changing around me. I don’t need to move.”  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)