From Darkness He Creates Beauty
As a boy growing up in the French Alps village of Chamonix, Eric Brun-Sanglard repeatedly woke up sweating and distraught by a recurring nightmare--the vision of a blind man clicking his white cane along a road.
So troubling were the nighttime terrors he suffered from age 3 to 6 that the child refused in daylight to pass near a blind person on the street. He would cross to the other side. The nightmares stopped, but his fear of blindness persisted as he grew up in France. He moved to the United States when he was 18, went to college in Boston and became a magazine advertising designer in Los Angeles.
Then, on Nov. 5, 1995 at age 33, Brun-Sanglard awoke to total darkness; his retinas had detached as a result of the effects of a virus associated with HIV. He and his doctors had battled to save his vision with medication and other treatments. Yet, the deterioration could not be halted.
*
Nearly four years later, the blind Brun-Sanglard at 37 is tanned, muscular and confident. All traces of HIV have been eradicated from his body. Together with 28-year-old Whitman, he has found a new career buying, renovating, and reselling high-end homes. During remodeling, Brun-Sanglard uses his sense and feel for a home’s light, air and space to give Whitman design ideas that are put on Braille plans. The two shop the world for decor pieces. The pair have recently completed their fifth home, which is on the market for $2.15 million, more than double the $910,000 they paid for it a year ago.
Set in the hills above the Sunset Strip, the house has been transformed from what they dubbed a “soulless California double-wide” into a sophisticated mini-estate with the aura of an Indonesian plantation.
Richly colored slate floors, mahogany-toned wood moldings, a Balinese bamboo gate with a rusted iron frame, a wooden door from India--all contribute to a “feeling that one has been transported to another place,” says Los Angeles interior designer Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, who remodeled Cheryl Tiegs’ Bel-Air home.
“There’s an exciting edge to the house,” he says.
Ironically, Brun-Sanglard’s blindness played a part. “It was all his inner vision. If Eric could have seen what was going on, he might not be as adventuresome,” Lawrence-Bullard says. “He would have been more reserved.”
That freedom, the designer suggests, comes from an inner awareness Brun-Sanglard has developed since he lost his sight. “Eric’s senses are so aroused to everything. He’s allowed his spiritual, artistic feelings to explode. He pours his love into his houses. This house is full of that man’s love.”
Life wasn’t always so deeply felt by Brun-Sanglard. When he lost his sight, he was designing catalogs and magazine ads for Scent Seal, a Los Angeles agency which specialized in perfume ads for companies like Chanel, Christian Dior and Donna Karan.
Brett Neubig, a friend of 13 years, says Brun-Sanglard had been living the Hollywood life of big parties and glamorous houses. “Eric had an attitude of, “I’m superior. I’m a star and everybody knows it.”’ The blindness humbled him, according to Neubig. “He values his God-given talents more. Before, I think he exploited them.”
“It was all about the outside,” admits Brun-Sanglard, sitting in the living room of the house he is now selling. “And I neglected what was going on inside me. To me, houses were for entertaining and to impress friends.”
After he lost his sight, Brun-Sanglard realized he could no longer work in print advertising. His overriding quandary during those first dark months was, “What am I going to be doing?”
He settled on creating a beauty-oriented Web site where, using his contacts in the cosmetics and perfume industry, he would present beauty tips from experts.
*
At the same time, to ease Brun-Sanglard’s newfound fear of his sightless life, he and Whitman began to create a sheltered world for him in their home. They decorated with fabrics and textures, grew a vegetable garden and cooked all meals in the house. Whitman learned how to describe the world to his companion.
Indeed, the creative vigor of transforming a home with treasures of the world became so restorative for the couple that they turned it into a business that acquires, remodels and redecorates homes for resale. Whitman got his contractor’s license, and Brun-Sanglard was happy to abandon the Web site project. The houses fulfilled his urge to create.
They formed a company called Eclipse Essentials and Design. “It makes sense if you think about it,” Brun-Sanglard said. “The light behind darkness.”
According to those familiar with Brun-Sanglard/Whitman creations, there is something beyond the surface of the houses they remodel that produces good feelings.
“Before, the house was cold and dead,” said Trish Templeton of Bel-Air, whose husband, Cress, sold Brun-Sanglard and Whitman their most recent project after breaking up with his previous wife. “It had no character. It was just a house,” she says.
But when she recently revisited the house, she was “blown away by the feeling of the house. It is so alive. It makes you want to live there.” “It’s very tactile,” Templeton explained. “On a subconscious level, it affects your other senses. There are the fountains, and the rough slate on the floors, and all the windows. It’s so natural, like it’s always been like that.”
Since he no longer has visual cues, Brun-Sanglard relies on other impressions. “I sense an energy in people. I know that sounds very California. I can tell someone who flows. Someone who’s closed. Someone who’s creative.”
Over the years, new tools have helped Brun-Sanglard lean less on Whitman, with whom he is no longer romantically paired.
Two years ago, he got his guide dog, a Labrador retriever named Legion (“lea-JAAHN,” in his owner’s brisk cadence), who escorted him on a monthlong European vacation earlier this year.
One of his gadgets identifies the color of anything it’s pointed at. Another dials the phone via voice prompts. The computer speaks. And, to help in major home renovations, Whitman bought a $600 machine that creates Braille versions of floor plans.
In the beginning, Brun-Sanglard feared that he could not function without Whitman. “I was extremely scared of that,” he said. But the past few years have given him new confidence. “I exist alone as well. I can do this on my own . . . I’ve really found peace of mind. I’ve discovered such a beauty to life.”
