Character Building
Literary agent Bob Broder and his wife, Cindy, had been looking for a larger home for more than a year when they finally found one they liked. The good news was it was a spacious Mediterranean-style house just six doors away in their own Hollywood Hills neighborhood. The bad news was it was an 8-year-old spec house with white walls, fluorescent lighting and Mexican tile fireplace surrounds. In short, new but bland. “I grew up in Mississippi with furnishings passed down from my parents’ families,” says Cindy, a former elementary school teacher. “I love houses that feel old.”
To give their new home the character and sense of history it lacked, the Broders hired interior designer Chris Barrett of Chris Barrett Design in Los Angeles, who immediately set about aging the floors and walls. She stripped terra-cotta tiles of their gloss, then topped them with antique carpets in soft, timeworn hues. Generic white walls now appear the color of parchment, the result of a linseed oil glaze tinted with burnt umber. The coved ceiling in the dining room, now silver-leafed, was glazed as well. Just as stenciling--in the dining room and powder room--evokes a bit of the Old World, the designer says, “glazes add translucency and depth.”
Other details further the illusion of a house with a rich past. Borrowing styles from 18th century Italy and 19th century France and using 200-year-old English Cotswold stone, Barrett turned fireplaces into focal points in the living room and master bedroom. “Just one old piece,” she says, “can ground an entire room.” Draperies of laundered linen are decorated with embroidery; antique fabrics make throws and cover pillows. And mirrors with original mottled-silver faces hang in every room. “There’s something compelling about an old mirror,” Barrett explains. “I like to imagine where it’s been, who has gazed into it.”
The Broders’ old and new furnishings, acquired from near and far, complete the overall effect. A Ming console, an American bobbin chair, a Victorian hall tree and a few British Colonial pieces mix easily with custom sofas, chairs and Raj-style built-in vanities, all designed by Barrett, who says: “It’s as if they had collected these things from many generations of family over a long period of time.” Or, as Broder likes to put it: “Our new house now has a story to tell.”