STYLE : INTERIORS : Setting the Stage

Interior design and set design have long drawn from each other--especially in L.A., where real homes often serve as movie and television locations. But for sheer theatrical panache, ceramics designer Ian Arthur’s house is in a class by itself. As a boy in Scotland, Arthur built miniature Victorian stage theaters, complete with working lights and curtains. After buying a 1913 bungalow on the Westside, he decided to pursue his passion on a grand scale.

Arthur and Beverly Hills designer Alanna Ponder began by razing the ramshackle bungalow in 1989, then basing the new facade on the original. They finished it in 1991 with distressed paint, an antique door and dense vines (“Painters are always leaving their cards in my mailbox,” Arthur chuckles). The modest exterior, like a false front, gives little hint of what lies within: a 33-foot-high room that looks out onto a pool and garden through a window wall framed by a full-scale theater curtain.

Inspired by the curtain at the historic Los Angeles Theater, which Arthur and Ponder discovered on an L.A. Conservancy tour, Arthur’s curtain was fabricated by a theatrical costumer from 500 yards of burgundy velvet. It is festooned with bullion- and crystal-trimmed swags and tassels, mounted on motorized commercial hardware and illuminated by 65 floodlights, spotlights and recessed floor “footlights.”

The large room contains kitchen, living and dining areas; upstairs, the master bedroom and bath occupy a loft modeled on a theater balcony. “We wanted to expose all the spaces to the big window, so even the master bath is open to it,” says Ponder, who designed the richly upholstered living room furniture, overscaling it slightly for the dramatic space. The kitchen underscores the design’s whimsy with jazzy embossed-leather stools, corrugated-wood cabinets and terrazzo counters in which colored glass is scattered like confetti. In addition to using ceramic sconces from his La Brea Avenue shop, Fabby, Arthur created glazed plant pots and pool tiles.

“We wanted to keep it fun--the house isn’t serious at all,” he says. “The lush fabrics and colors keep it from seeming cavernous and unfriendly.” Noting the polished-concrete floor, Ponder adds: “It’s also functional and low-maintenance.” During pool parties, the glass doors swing open and indoors and outdoors blend seamlessly. At such times, guests are tempted to agree with Shakespeare that “all the world’s a stage.”