Screen Gem
The 1930s cottage in Brentwood had an overgrown yard and a dated interior, but Michael Riva and his wife, Wendy Mickell, said, “We’ll take it.” A film production designer and art director, respectively, with more than 40 films to their credit, they are, after all, in the business of making something out of nothing. In addition, the pair were intrigued by neighborhood lore that read like a Hollywood screenplay. According to Riva, “The developer of the area named a street after his mistress. When his wife--Helena--found out, he promised to name all the other streets in the development after her if she would forgive him.” There are now 25 Helenas. “We fell in love with the quiet cul-de-sac street and the parklike area,” says Mickell. “And we both saw the possibilities.”
With three young sons, the couple needed extra room and asked architects Raun Thorp and Brian Tichenor of Tichenor & Thorp in Beverly Hills to design a 1,300-square-foot second-floor addition featuring a spacious master bedroom suite and two children’s rooms. The owners stripped and lightened the dark Douglas fir floors in the original house, then removed mirrors from walls and ceilings and painted the rooms in soft shades of cream, yellow and khaki for a light, airy feeling.
Unlike a film set, Riva says, a home should be comfortable and decorated with personal memorabilia. “There are pieces of my whole life around this house.” The Bluthner piano--a gift from his grandmother, actress Marlene Dietrich, from her Park Avenue apartment--stands in the living room. “Burt Bacharach wrote many of his hit songs on it,” he says. A collection of miniature copies of the Eiffel Tower recalls childhood memories: “When I was young I used to stay with my grandmother at the Lancaster Hotel in Paris. I remember sitting out on the balcony with her having croissants and hot chocolate, the Eiffel Tower in the distance.” Pieces of former film sets and props salvaged from the wrecking ball lend a whimsical touch. Snow domes made by Riva to illustrate the opening title sequence of the film “North” decorate a dining room shelf while fake “lovelogs” from Mel Gibson’s bedroom in “Lethal Weapon 4” crackle under the TV in the den. On a terrace below the pool stands a gazebo built for the set of “Hard Rain.” And a blue boat in which Riva drilled holes and sank for the same film--now patched--floats in the pool for his kids to play in. “I get inspired by whatever film I happen to be working on,” he says, “but it’s much easier to do a set than a house. In a set you research it, build it, shoot it and it’s done, but a house is constantly evolving.”
Michael Riva’s hollywood hits:
Back lot: Warner Bros.
Movie: Fellini’s “Amarcord.”
Set design: “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.”
Special makeup effects: Rob Bottin for the 1982 remake of “The Thing.”
Book: “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” by Robert Evans.
Theater: Cinerama Dome.