Artful Lodgers
In the spotlight: The California-French style home of Darrel and Marsha Anderson. Darrel Anderson, a private investor who is the grandson of Knott’s Berry Farm founders Walter and Cordelia Knott, is incoming president of the Orange County Art Museum’s board of trustees. Marsha is a member of its Visionaries support group.
What they wanted: Frequent travelers and passionate art collectors, the Andersons wanted a low-maintenance property with a high level of security.
They found it at gated Big Canyon in Newport Beach. There, in a $1-million, 4,000-square-foot townhome decorated by Tommy Chambers of Los Angeles, the Andersons have combined what they enjoy most: French style and contemporary art.
“We got the feeling that it was a very sophisticated European townhouse the minute we saw it,” Marsha said on a recent afternoon as the sun dappled the oak floors of their two-story living room. “That was what really turned us on to it.”
It wasn’t easy letting go of the 1,500-square-foot Laguna Beach cottage--situated on a half acre--that had been their home for several years. “It had a stunning view of the water and we dearly loved it,” Darrel said.
“But we had seriously outgrown it--artwise and spacewise,” he added. “We decided that, for our lifestyle, we needed a place where we could comfortably showcase our art and also be able to lock up and be gone.”
The home as a gallery: Dozens of pieces of fine art grace the pale yellow, rag-painted walls of the Anderson household: Paintings by acclaimed Los Angeles realists F. Scott Hess, John Swihart, Peter Zokosky and Michael McMillen; and ink drawings by Czech artist Oldrich Kulhanek. “He designed Czech money when it was under communism,” Marsha noted.
There are also sculptures by John Frame, Ray Turner, Cecilia Miguez, and a self-portrait in the style of Rembrandt by Norwegian artist Odd Nedrum.
When the couple met in 1991, they learned they shared an enthusiasm for collecting. Marsha was into abstract art. Darrel, figurative.
“Now, we’ve both gravitated toward figurative and contemporary realism,” Darrel said.
“We got rid of the abstract,” said Marsha, a fund-raising dynamo who helped raise $650,000 for the museum at last year’s Art of Dining benefit. “We decided, what can be more beautiful than the figure? These days, art students are wanting to learn to draw the human form again,” she said. “There’s a definite return to representational art.”
The living room as a classroom: No sooner do you sweep into the Andersons’ light-filled living room than you are struck by the scope of their art collection and the variety of places in which to behold it--saffron velvet sofa; graceful French side chairs; silk-covered love seat; a quartet of leather high-back chairs pulled up to a black marble cocktail table.
“We like to entertain and educate--that’s what’s important,” Marsha said. “Education is the reason people will become involved in a museum. I think it’s important for enthusiasts of the arts to educate people--whether they be lovers of the visual or performing arts.”
Living with art is an enriching experience that broadens the horizons of all who share it, Darrel believes.
“A great example of that came toward the end of our remodeling project here,” he said. “After we’d begun to hang the paintings, various workmen began to ask me to explain this painting or that one.
“At the end of a month or so, each of them went away with a much different feeling about art than they’d had when they first came. And for them, that was an enriching experience.”
In Home appears on the first Saturday of the month. Ann Conway can be reached at (714) 966-5952 or by e-mail at ann.conway@latimes.com.