An Oasis of Calm
Scott Lander was hooked on Art Deco design, that is until he saw the handsome 18th and 19th century Asian furnishings at Lotus Antiquities, a La Brea Avenue shop owned by Los Angeles designer Brad Blair. “I fell in love with the quiet simplicity of the furniture and the warm, honey-colored woods. I knew it was the direction I had to take,” says the chiropractor, who now uses his Art Deco collection to decorate his Santa Monica office.
In its place at his condominium, which nearby Paramount Studios built in the mid-1920s as a temporary artists’ loft, Lander and Blair have created a welcoming environment with contemporary Asian flair. Belying the English cottage exterior, the interiors feature antique and reproduction Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian furnishings. A few Western-style pieces, such as the custom sofas and ottomans designed by Blair himself, are mixed in for comfort. Many of the Asian appointments have been adapted to suit today’s modern lifestyle: A 19th century Japanese kitchen tonsu in the living room houses the television set; a 12-inch-high 19th century Japanese lacquered dining room table serves as a coffee table; a 19th century red lacquered rice pot holds a plant.
The first room Blair and Lander tackled in the three-story condo was the narrow 12-by-40-foot attic. The low ceilings reminded Blair of cramped sleeping quarters in the eaves of many tiny Japanese houses. “I wanted to expand the space by playing up the horizontality and to bring the eyes down, as would be done in the floor-oriented Japanese home,” he says. To achieve these effects, the designer reduced the profile of all furniture and accessories, from the platform beds at each end of the room, which he had lowered, to the zabutons, or Japanese floor cushions. Four-drawer tonsus became more horizontal when unstacked into matched pairs of two-drawer chests here and in the living room.
Furnishings, fabrics, walls and floors reflect a soft palette of golden hues: bamboo, teak and cypress, and natural-colored linens and chenilles. Walls that had been lilac are now cafe au lait, with creamy-white architectural elements such as beams, baseboards and window trim. Where possible, Blair looked for Asian-inspired flourishes, adding antique sudare--Japanese matchstick-bamboo blinds--to windows, Chinese seagrass floor covering on stairs and in upper rooms, and yoshido--Japanese summer reed doors--on closets.
Today, Lander’s home is a far cry from its highly stylized Art Deco period; it’s pared-down, Zen-like, with a soothing sense of tranquillity. “My days are so hectic, I need a quiet oasis to return to,” he says. “Just walking through the door lowers my blood pressure.”
