Insiders’ Club of Designing Women--and Men

Kenneth Dean, 40, fresh from his latest job designing gold-leafed moldings and faux-finished ceilings in the Chaplin/DeMille Design House, is charged to take on another challenge--amateur decorators.

“Those amateurs going around giving professionals a bad name. We’re determined to keep them from doing harm to people’s homes,” said Dean, owner of Studio City’s Dean International Designs.

As a member of the International Society of Interior Designers, Dean joins the San Fernando Valley Chapter’s 149 other amateur-busters who are allied in a fight to keep homes safe from peeling wallpaper, bleeding upholstery and tiles that pop off in the night.

The group, together with the California Legislative Conference on Interior Design, isn’t just lobbying Sacramento for creation of a licensing and regulatory body that would make designers more accountable. The talent pool of designers, landscape architects, general contractors and decorating tradespeople looks to the local group for camaraderie as well as professional support.

Interior designer Cheryl Casey Ross, 47, of Van Nuys called it “a sorority where if you’re having trouble with a lamp, your fellow designer says, ‘I had that problem, let me help,’ instead of looking at you like, ‘Well, I guess you’ve got a problem.’ ”

The group was formed in 1978 when 14 Los Angeles-area interior designers defected from the prestigious American Society of Interior Designers--they considered it stuffy and cliquish--to form their own organization, now 3,500 members strong.

“It is our responsibility to our members, above all, to showcase and encourage their talents,” said Calabasas designer Marsha Broderick, 45, owner of Pink Ladies Design and president of ISID’s Valley chapter.

Members frequently work on design showcases-- open houses that serve as three-dimensional resumes for members and a fund-raiser for the group.

“It terribly pays for a designer if they do a smashing job,” said Ross, a kitchen and bath specialist. She said a “landslide” of business has been referred to her because of ISID’s most recent project, the Los Feliz mansion home of film legends Charlie Chaplin and, later, Cecil B. DeMille.

The Chaplin/DeMille Design House, open to the public for two weeks in July, was a tribute to Old Hollywood with such features as the Susan Hayward garden room and Gloria Swanson sitting room. The Hedy Lamarr lounge and powder room reflected the color and drama of the actress’ peacock robe in “Samson and Delilah.” The Yul Brynner suite recalled the romance of a noble horseman’s tent on the Russian steppes.

“We made tremendous improvements that not only left beautiful interiors,” said Dean, “but increased the value of the house as well.” (Generally, $250,000 to $500,000 in labor and materials are left behind in a design house.) The house was co-sponsored by ISID’s Los Angeles chapter and the American Cancer Society, which helps with tours and shares the proceeds.

In 1986, the Tim Conway estate in Encino was transformed--its plantation-style lines enhanced by a traditional theme. In 1988, the group updated and expanded a country estate, Tarzana’s Cranberry Knoll. In May, the Crane estate in Calabasas, which had been on the market for several years, sold the day it opened for ISID’s Country Estate Tour, Fine Art and Antique Auction.

Showcases “are what we’re all about,” said Ross, adding that the Valley ISID has yet to perfect production of these fund-raisers. Mainly, they aren’t aggressive enough about public relations. “We’re the best-kept secret in the Valley,” she said.

Unlike Pasadena’s enormously successful Showcase House of Design, sponsored annually by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Committee and featuring the work of ISID and ASID members, their projects have yet to attract torrents of visitors. (About 46,400 people attended the Pasadena showcase in 1988; 6,000 visited the Chaplin/DeMille house in ’89.)

For their next design house, the group is searching for a local historical or architectural gem of 8,000 or more square feet, or a house connected to an intriguing or unusual story. The committee is considering an Encino house, Dean said, which is magnificent and reminiscent of the old Hancock Park mansions. The Encino family has already offered to move out for the nine-month renovation period.

The Valley chapter is known within the organization--whose 26 chapters dot the map from Tokyo to Australia and Mexico--as one of the more “energetic and productive” groups, said Carol Price, New York-based ISID International president.

Continuing education courses are given on everything from the serendipitous (the latest, greatest Italian marble or the hows of stenciling) to the serious (how to structure fees or draft perfect floor plans). There are lectures at the monthly meetings by trade experts, such as carpenters or ceramic craftsmen, and a scholarship foundation to support interior design students.

Today’s interior designer must be architect, contractor, health and safety inspector and more. Dean, a restaurant specialist with 18 years experience, said a designer must know such things as earthquake codes, handicapped-access laws, possible allergic reactions to fabric, the difference between a bearing wall (which holds up the house) and a wall that can be knocked out.

The requirements of some jobs can be so complex--whether it’s working in tandem with an architect-builder, as Sherman Oaks designer Beverly Coffey, 52, did when she “took a house all the way from the idea down to the ashtrays”--that some ISID members such as Broderick have obtained contractor’s licenses to better manage the mechanics of their work.

Not all designers are so qualified. Unlike attorneys or architects, who are licensed and regulated by state-governed bodies, would-be interior designers (no training or education is required) just need to fill out an application from the state Board of Equalization to obtain a seller’s license or “resale number.” This number gives entree to design trade showrooms and wholesale discounts on furniture, carpet and other home design items.

Dean has seen such design disasters as slippery floor material used in a senior citizen’s home, and entry tile installed with only cement, instead of the required tar paper, wire mesh and cement. “Six months later, tiles came popping off all over,” he said.

“On one job, the floor plan was a room with bookcases, a fireplace, French doors, a bar . . . it was wonderful! Except there was no room for furniture,” Dean said. “An amateur decorator would say, ‘OK, let’s just cram two chairs in the corner.’ But a pro would know to alter those plans so the fireplace is recessed, unnecessary doors become windows, the bar is moved, and there it is, a design that works-- with furniture.”

To join, prospective members’ education, work and business practices are scrutinized. Since 1987, each has had to pass a rigorous two-day exam given by the New York-based National Council for Interior Design Qualifications. About 25% of the 4,000 who have taken the exam pass, according to Joe Gagliardi, controller of the council.

“This is definitely not a club,” Price said. “And the rules are getting tougher.”

Said Coffey, “We’ve been known to ‘retire’ a few people who failed to uphold them.”

“They say we’re not a club, but we’re a club,” Dean said, “because our camaraderie is extraordinary.”

“Who else would understand why I don’t call myself an interior designer but a problem solver?” said Coffey, who, like other members, revels in the intimacy of local ISID meetings.

“By the time you’re called in it’s serious: The clients don’t have time, or they have terrible taste and they know it, or the husband and wife are disagreeing--he wants the big chair; she wants the little one. At my ISID meetings it’s, ‘Oh, that happened to you? That happened to me! Oh, really, well, what I did when it happened to me. . . .’ In this business there are a lot of problems; in ISID there is a lot of help.”

In ISID’s campaign for state licensing and regulation, Dean is encouraging Valley members to write “harm” letters to lawmakers detailing instances in which sloppy, shoddy or incompetent designers have hurt their profession. “We have to rule out all those amateurs who think just because they can do a nice job rearranging furniture they can be a design professional,” he said. “Hopefully, soon they can call themselves decorators, but not interior designers. Homes are depending on it.”