The Personal Library

Now that the family room has been revamped to reflect its new station as the heart of the home, what’s left for personal expression? The room as retreat. Several Southern California residents and designers show us where they go to indulge their passions, recharge their souls or simply contemplate the universe. Formal and casual, spare and busy, their diverse visions of sanctuary revolve around books or music and movies or meditation. The tour begins here.

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Real estate agent Rob Johnson and literary agent Stephen Rose bought their remodeled ‘60s hilltop home above the Sunset Strip for the library. “We were leaving a Georgian-style house with a beautiful mahogany-paneled library in the Hollywood Hills,” Johnson explains. “We both love to read and had to have a place for all of our art and architecture books.” Santa Monica architect Brian A. Murphy had suspended a catwalk-like mezzanine made of industrial steel grate above the living room and attached cantilevered steel shelves made of steel rebar to the 22-foot-high cambered ceiling. “I designed it originally for a lawyer who wanted to prove that a library wasn’t necessarily synonymous with dark wood panels in an enclosed space,” Murphy recalls. These days, Johnson and Rose, who have added a desk with a computer, use the mezzanine to check out rare architecture books and Internet auctions and to shop for contemporary titles online. “It feels dramatic being up there on the catwalk,” Rose says. “Looking back down on the house and the huge windows--it’s almost like being in a cathedral.”

Can’t live without:

Johnson: “Los Angeles: An Architectural Guide,” by David Gebhard and Robert Winter.

Rose: “Julius Shulman:

Architecture and Its Photography,” by Julius Shulman.

Favorite fiction:

Johnson: “The Fountainhead,” by Ayn Rand.

Rose: “All the Pretty Horses,” by Cormac McCarthy.

Where they shop: Book Soup in West Hollywood and Amazon.com

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Designers Susan and David Frisch faced a challenge when they were called in to design a library for a Hollywood film producer and his wife at their new two-story modern San Fernando Valley home. “They wanted maximum book storage in a warm and inviting setting,” says David. The existing library was an awkward 8 feet by 22 feet situated in the center of the home and surrounded by the dining, kitchen and living rooms. The Frisches began by fashioning floor-to-ceiling bookcases in a grid pattern of 11/2-inch-thick clear coated cherry, with thinner adjustable shelves recessed in each opening. “It organizes the space visually,” Susan explains. Next they built a sliding stainless steel ladder on a track to reach books stored all the way up to the 12-foot-high ceiling. A built-in desk with two comfortable chairs and a dark green wool carpet complete the contemporary interior. At night, with the lights of the Valley visible through a window onto the living room, the library is a welcome spot where the family often gathers to read from their collection of photography books. Says the producer, “The library was intended both physically and metaphorically to be the heart of the home.”

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Stephen Harby wouldn’t think of living in a room without books. “They lend softness and warmth, color and interest,” says the architect, who recently won a Rome Prize fellowship and plans to spend next year painting watercolors of ancient Roman sites in Italy. “They also change the acoustics by absorbing sound,” he says, which may explain why his postwar bungalow in Santa Monica has a hushed ambience. To hold his array of architecture and travel books, Harby created a floor-to-ceiling hall library adjacent to the entry by eliminating closets and adding columns and low bookshelves to serve as a room divider. “Before remodeling, I walked directly from the front door into the main living room, which is now my dining room,” he explains. In the new living room at the rear of the house, Harby built additional shelves, dividing an 18-foot-long wall with vertical ribs aligned with the ceiling beams. He then painted the walls, shelves and ceiling subtle shades of moss green. Books are displayed along with souvenirs, including masks from Bali, Java, Borneo and Cuba. For Harby, who likes traveling as much as reading, the ideal place to enjoy a good book is on a freighter in the Indian Ocean. He recalls one blissfully slow trip from England to Mauritius that stretched into a month--”There was nothing to do but read, and there were no interruptions.”

Of his home, Harby says: “Like the Anthony Powell novel says, ‘Books Do Furnish a Room.’ Books we’ve had all our lives are like dear, old friends.”

Favorite all-time read: “The Shape of Time,” by George Kubler, which Harby reads every five years.

What he’s reading now: “Palace Walk,” by Naguib Mahfouz, and “Baths & Bathing in Classical Antiquity,” by Fikret Yegul, both in preparation for upcoming trips to Egypt and Italy.

Where he shops: Acanthus Books, New York City, for its out-of-print books on architecture.

Preferred bookmark: Slips of paper.

Can’t read without: Cuban mojitos.

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When Kathleen Brown and Van Gordon Sauter met for their first date, they discussed books and marriage. The morning after, a lavish bouquet of flowers and a copy of “Daniel Martin”--with specific lines highlighted for her to read--showed up on her doorstep. Now married 19 years, Brown, former state treasurer and daughter of the late Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, and Sauter, a retired broadcast executive, have shared a passion for books ever since. “I grew up in a small Ohio town with a grandmother who inundated me with books,” says Sauter. “It was my window on the world.” The couple, who keep homes in Idaho and L.A., needed a space-efficient way to accommodate the many books they have amassed. (He reads two a week; she reads one a month.) L.A. designer Carol Poet’s solution was to turn a V-shaped wall between the living room and master bedroom into a bookcase. She painted the black walls and ceiling warm sand tones and added adjustable shelves. With new English moldings and fluted columns that complement the rest of the casual country decor, Poet says, “the bookcase has become the focal point for the room.” Adds Brown, president of Private Bank West, “Now if only she could do that in Idaho, where we have even more books.”

Favorite all-time reads:

Brown: “Angle of Repose,” by Wallace Stegner.

Sauter: “Theodore Roosevelt,” by Edmund Morris.

recent reads:

Brown: “Lindbergh,” by A. Scott Berg.

Sauter: “Once an Eagle,” by Anton Myrer.

Best place:

Brown: In an airplane--”I spend so much time flying.”

Sauter: a comfortable leather rocker.

Can’t read without:

Brown: Atkins Diet Advantage Bars.

Sauter: popcorn, Diet Coke and a cigar.

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When the noise level goes up, says film director Ron Underwood, the father of three daughters, he escapes to the library. Says his wife Sandy, “When we added on to the back of the house five years ago, Ron’s only request was to have a quiet space to read.” Odom and Kate Stamps, a husband-and-wife architecture and design team based in South Pasadena, built the 9-by-12-foot second-story room to order. The Stamps gave it a view of the garden and rose-covered pergola below. Then Kate filled the library with 19th century English and Italian antiques, Old World etchings and a comfortable down-filled sofa that Underwood jokingly calls, “my own personal casting couch.” The director, whose credits include “City Slickers,” “Mighty Joe Young” and the upcoming Eddie Murphy film “Pluto Nash,” has plenty of shelf space in floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases on two opposite walls. The other 10-foot-high walls and the peaked ceiling are upholstered with a celestial motif fabric to insulate against unwanted distractions. “What I like best,” says Underwood, who now has a refuge for reading as well as snoozing, “is being close by my family yet totally secluded at the same time.”

An industrial spiral staircase and polished concrete floor add a sleek look to the living room below. Opposite top: A sculptural aluminum bench by Australian artist Danny Venlet complements the parabolic roof line of the garage. Opposite bottom: An industrial steel grate in Rob Johnson and Stephen Rose’s mezzanine library makes a graceful transition to become the floor and railing of the outdoor deck.

Favorite all-time read: “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury.

What he’s reading now: “Show Me the Magic,” by Paul Mazursky, and “Full Moon,” by Michael Light and Andrew Chaikin, for research on an upcoming film.

Where he shops: Charing Cross Road in London.

Preferred bookmark: Cash register receipt.

Can’t read without: Brandy and popcorn.

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