Designers Give Distinctive Looks to Five Different Bedroom Suites

“I think every room in the house has its designed purpose,” says software entrepreneur Bradford Karns. “And the bedroom is a place for sleeping. I don’t hole up there with a box of candy.” Karns wanted a sleek, minimalist environment with an indoor/outdoor feel and gallery-like space where he could hang his extensive collection of modern and contemporary art. And he needed durable, easy-to-clean surfaces that would withstand his 8-year-old, 140-pound Akita, Grendel, who has free range of his Windsor Square home. Interior designer Joseph Terrell of Sign Language Habitat in Tucson, Ariz., designed a row of closets of laminated frosted milk glass, which forms the entry to Karns’ master bedroom suite. “We made the space neat and tidy,” says Terrell, who added a 10-foot bay of laminated closets in the bathroom to hold drawers for socks, belts, ties and underwear. Limestone covers counters as well as the walls and floor. In lieu of a formal bathroom, a doorless area houses both shower and tub. “I originally wanted an outdoor shower,” says Karns, “but on the second floor, that wasn’t very practical.” Los Angeles architectural designer John C. Barone, who conceived the bathroom, added a band of high windows that frame treetops to give Karns a feeling of “being outside in a treehouse.” The focal point of Karns’ spare 21-by-29-foot bedroom is a Terrell-designed king-size platform bed with a low-slung shelf of padauk wood stained ebony. A 4 1/2-foot-high Ultrasuede headboard provides a backrest for reading in bed or watching TV, while sisal covers the floor, where Grendel sleeps. “I’ve invited him into bed, but I think it gets too warm for him,” he says. An east-facing window that overlooks his basketball court and a floor-to-ceiling southern window bathe the room with early morning light. “One of the most important things was to have a light-filled bedroom,” says Karns, who hasn’t hung any window coverings. “I like to get up naturally to my own internal alarm clock. And if I don’t, Grendel wakes me.”

Streamlined Contemporary

The master bedroom suite in the remodeled 1950s Castellammare home of Jerry and Doreen Rochman is a serene, self-contained world. “Our children were grown and we wanted a home that accommodated our needs,” says Jerry. The late Frank Israel was the initial designer for the two-story modern house, with work on the home later completed by his firm, Callas Shortridge Architects in Culver City. “The living, dining, kitchen and office areas are on the upper floor,” says Barbara Callas, “but Jerry and Doreen have everything they need to live downstairs if they wanted to.” The master bedroom suite and exercise room on the lower level bookend a laundry/kitchenette. The small galley is appointed with an electric hot plate, coffee pot and toaster, as well as a dumbwaiter leading to the upstairs kitchen, which reduces trips up and down the stairway. A eucalyptus tree emerging through the master bedroom’s 50-foot deck offers shade, privacy and dramatic views of the Malibu coast. “The deck and bedroom have become one large room for us,” says Jerry, who often reads outside or sits in the Jacuzzi. “We used to camp a lot, and we love the feeling of being outdoors. If it’s warm enough, we often shower with the door open.” Alongside the shower, a concrete radiant-heated tub is another warm place to bathe and soak up the view. The bedroom’s special feature is a built-in Douglas fir platform bed with attached night tables and a storage closet and a bookcase. A large door off the downstairs corridor pivots to enclose the room. When open, it becomes a seamless extension of the built-in wall. For added comfort, the Rochmans, who are both psychotherapists, had the California king-size bed placed sideways. “We’re not too tall, and the California king is longer than it is wide,” Jerry explains, “so we turned it around to have more width.” At night in bed, the couple hear sounds of surf and leaves rustling in the ocean breezes. “I grew up in Chicago, which was cold and windy in winter and hot and muggy in summer and where windows always wore screens to keep the bugs out,” says Jerry. “Having everything open is heaven.”

20th century eclectic

It’s so quiet up here you have a feeling of being away from the city,” says interior designer Paul Fortune of his Laurel Canyon bedroom. “It’s where I read, nap, sleep, daydream, hide out.” In the second-floor room, his Danish Modern desk faces a corner window overlooking a garden. He uses the desk for writing personal notes, he says, “but not to do any business.” Nearby, a built-in bookcase holds Hollywood gossip books and biographies, which he often reads in a Paul McCobb chair by the fireplace or in the bed he designed with a 5-foot-high linen-covered headboard. “I hate tons of cushions, and the upholstered headboard does away with all that.” A pair of two-tiered night tables hold his magazines, books, prints, flashlights, candles, water carafe, lamps and “ all the other things you have to have by your bed.” Walls are hung with drawings and photographs from his mid-century portrait collection, which he periodically rotates.” When I get tired of them, I take them down and put up something new.” Adjacent to the bedroom, Fortune’s master bathroom serves a dual purpose, acting almost like a sitting room. It’s so roomy and comfortable, in fact, that one night he had dinner there with a friend. “There was a fire in the fireplace, a small tray of food to pick at, a glass of wine--it was all very 18th Century.” The designer has filled the room with a sophisticated mix of 20th century furnishings, ranging from a 1940s French console inset with a wenge-wood sink to an Art Deco mirror, ‘50s floor lamp and ‘60s chandelier. A comfortable vintage club chair stands next to the tub, which he encased in mahogany and fitted with a Euopean brass shower. Below, luxurious ivory-colored leather tiles cover the floor. “Everyone was horrified I was going to do it, including the manufacturer. I just sealed the tiles with carnauba wax and wipe them with a damp cloth once in a while. It’s so warm to walk on--there’s no shock of an icy bathroom floor.” Just outside, sandwiched between the back of the bedroom fireplace and the hillside, is his outdoor shower. “There’s no ceiling but the sky, and the steam goes straight up and doesn’t fog up the windows.” In mid-September, Fortune’s TV quit working while he was watching the news, and he hasn’t replaced it, making his bedroom more serene. “I used to think it was a great place to have a TV, now I think it’s a great place not to have one.”

European Romantic

Dark and rustic with exposed ceiling beams is how artist Melinda Salinger remembers the early decor of the master bedroom in her Rustic Canyon home. “I wanted a soft, feminine and enticing bedroom,” says Salinger. “I spend a lot of time here. To me it’s the most important room in the house.” Inspired by elegant Old World hotel rooms--such as those in the Plaza Athenee in Paris, where she stayed on family vacations as a young girl--she began transforming the room into a romantic retreat to be shared with husband Fred, who is president of Phoenix Software. A 1920s allegorical painting featuring cherubim adorns the ceiling and sets the European tone. An antique Aubusson rug in tones of mauve and dark rose mirrors the colors in the painting above, and walls are done in a complementary pale lilac. “When I saw that the color of the paint was named Lancelot, I had to have it. It was just so romantic,” says Salinger, who had named her previous dog, a whippet, Valentine, and her current dog Romeo. The bedroom’s furnishings--which include an antique bombe chest, a wisteria-painted armoire and a French chaise longue--continue the continental theme. Windows are creatively draped with vintage textiles that Salinger collected during her travels. Opposite the simple white wood bed stands a 1930s mirrored vanity lined with the original blue moire silk. A pair of cherubs--part of her 300-plus angel collection that graces ceilings and walls and shelves throughout the house--flank the vanity. Another seemingly floats on the wall directly above the bed. In the newly renovated bathroom, which was designed by architect Brian Murphy of BAM Construction/Design in Santa Monica, rose branches have been fashioned into a halo, sprayed white and hung from the ceiling to complete the ethereal theme. “I love having angels all around--they watch over me,” says Salinger. “I feel completely safe and happy in my bedroom. It’s really a place for daydreaming--a pastime I don’t think we do enough of anymore.”

Mixed Media

“The bedroom was so dark I left the lights on all day long,” recalls Shirley McKernan. And it wasn’t just the redwood-paneled walls that needed updating in her 1968 Brentwood residence. McKernan called in interior designer Nick Berman to modernize the master suite she shares with husband Peter, President of Star Helicopter. Berman first expanded the room by 600 feet, adding a high side window to bring in much needed light. He replaced the wall-to-wall orange shag carpet with South African prairie slate. But the centerpiece of the room is a low-slung contemporary bed with a customized Christian Liagre headboard of quarter-sawn oak and canvas. Next to the bed are two 8-foot-long night tables of rift oak and wenge wood that hold the couple’s collection of Pre-Columbian sculpture. The designer then reconfigured a large master bath. A tub, encased in dry-stacked prairie slate and a deck of green onyx, divides the room into nearly mirror-image spaces, each with its own free-standing TV cabinet. His-and-her copper sinks are set in marble-topped teak cabinets, while a large double-door shower connects the two spaces. At the rear of the bath is a 12-foot-long clerestory window of sandblasted glass. “I don’t do it often, but once in a while I lie in the tub and look at the TV and think to myself, this is pretty luxurious,” says Shirley. But her favorite pastime is cuddling in bed with dogs Molly, Bogie and Bandit. “It’s definitely their favorite spot in the house.”