All Quiet on the Eastern Front
At the age of 3, Brad Blair was drawing houses. Later, he began dreaming up intricate floor plans. By 11, he was building whole villages out of Lego blocks. “I’ve always been fascinated with houses,” recalls the 27-year-old interior designer, who now decorates them as well. In 1996, Blair opened Lotus Antiquities on La Brea Avenue, specializing in his personal passion--18th and 19th century pieces from the countrysides of India, Japan and northern China, with a smattering of goods from Southeast Asia. “People are finally realizing how easily these furnishings mix with many different styles,” he says.
Blair’s own 1925 courtyard apartment in West Hollywood holds a Pan-Asian collection of furniture and accessories. Indonesian planters’ chairs are teamed with Chinese tables, Indian lamps and Japanese window screens. The common thread: All are handcrafted and come from cultures immersed in tradition and ceremony. “There’s an attention to detail at every level,” he says, noting, for instance, the teardrop-shaped brass drawer pulls on the kangji, a low Chinese bedroom chest, in the guest room. “One well-chosen piece is sometimes all you need to add a touch of the exotic to a room.”
An inventive designer, Blair has adapted many Asian appointments to the American lifestyle. Japanese sudare, or matchstick-bamboo window screens, serve as an elegant room divider between his living and dining rooms. Wood hibachis once used to heat tea in Japan have been appropriated as planters. And a Chinese kitchen cabinet in the bedroom houses TV and stereo equipment. “More often than not,” he explains, “people are looking for Western function in an Eastern package.”
Elsewhere, he added simple wrought-iron bases to jalis, slotted sandstone transom remnants from India, to turn them into coffee and end tables. He also mounted a six-panel Japanese byobu, a free-standing paper screen, on the wall like a Western painting. As Blair puts it: “Almost anything can be reincarnated. In the East, things have many lives.”
For a more dramatic backdrop, Blair painted the walls downstairs the terra-cotta shade of yixing, an unglazed Chinese earthenware; upstairs, the rooms have sand walls and cappuccino ceilings. To create the illusion of spaciousness in 1,000 square feet, he removed the wall-to-wall carpet, then stained the honey oak floors the color of black coffee because, he says, “in India, Japan and China, wood floors are often dark.”
The overall effect of this pared-down, decidedly Asian sensibility is a soothing sense of tranquillity that Blair believes almost everyone can relate to. “People are grasping for a semblance of spirituality in their lives today,” he says. “Surrounding ourselves with less--a few beautiful pieces--can help simplify our lives and foster a sense of peace.”