Dad’s house, fine-tuned

“BUILDINGS,” architect Steven Ehrlich wrote, “exist to serve people. It is at home that we reconnect with nature, each other and ourselves.”

For the Landers family, that philosophy became prophecy. Nearly 25 years ago, Hal Landers commissioned Ehrlich to transform a worn-out California bungalow in Coldwater Canyon into an Arts and Crafts-influenced haven and to add an A-frame sunroom overlooking a lagoon pool. With a baby grand in one corner, the 750-square-foot sunroom was an appropriately theatrical setting for the talent agent and producer of motion pictures and pop music. Hal, whom son Jay recalls as “a Damon Runyon-esque bon vivant,” and wife Urve “ran the house like a Parisian salon, with an endless stream of fantastic parties.”

Now it’s Jay’s turn.

“I was very aware of the love and attention my father put into this house,” Jay Landers says. “I’d always longed to live here again.”

So much so that he bought a place around the corner and waited for his father’s old house to come onto the market. Three years ago, when Landers was buying an engagement ring for his future wife, the clerk noticed his address and told him that a previous customer was thinking of selling her home in Landers’ neighborhood.

This, of course, was the house Landers’ late father had built. Prepared to make an offer, Landers was shocked by the condition of the property upon reentering for the first time in 15 years. “I opened the door and it was as if time had stood still,” he says.

“All of the beautiful things had remained, just as my father had left them.”

THESE days, though Ehrlich is largely celebrated for concrete, glass and steel houses and Mondrian-in-3-D compositions, his work on the Landers renovation a quarter of a century ago remains strikingly fresh. It provides an early look at his complex, organic aesthetic and his ability to create extraordinary spaces within the vernacular of traditional architecture.

With Hal Landers’ enthusiastic patronage, Ehrlich took an ordinary one-story post-World War II home and created a forward-thinking structure with surprising geometric volumes. The showpiece sunroom was inspired by visits to Monet’s airy painting studio in the French village of Giverny, where Hal Landers had charmed the curator into showing him blueprints.

The rest of the Landers home, however, bore the imprint of several early 20th century California builders. From the street, the brick and clapboard exterior and shake roof recalled the sweeping proportions of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School, with bay windows that resembled the hull of a schooner. Viewed from the brick patio surrounding the pool, the indoor-outdoor California Modernism of R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra was evident in the wall of eight soaring window doors that looked out toward the pool.

Other details were Ehrlich’s invention. In the master bedroom, thick plaster walls rose to meet a ceiling paneled in a Douglas fir hexagon, as if the roof of a ski chalet had been joined to the walls of a 1920s Mediterranean.

Throughout the house, alder wood wainscot walls and expansive window seats with intricate molding looked like the work of a yacht builder. Sunshine flooded through bay windows and triangular clerestories, and pin-spot lighting tucked under soffits washed onto artwork and paneled ceilings, suffusing the woody rooms with a honeyed glow.

For Jay Landers, it was love at second sight.

“Wait until you see the pool,” he excitedly told his wife.

A swim, however, would have to wait. Landers and wife Despina Gianopulos soon found out that the home’s previous owners had filled in the pool to create a lawn and hoops court for their son.

“We’re short, not particularly basketball people,” Gianopulos says.

Putting in a pool was duly added to a list of upgrades that also included a new kitchen, done in a French country mode, and reconfigured closets and master bath. During the remodeling, which began in summer 2004, Landers discovered that the spirit of his father was very much alive.

“We’d take down a wall and there would be instructions on beams about where to install lighting fixtures in his handwriting,” Landers recalls. “It was very sweet.”

BEFORE Landers’ father died in 1991, he had given much of the home’s original furnishings and a collection of prints by Parisian modern artists Georges Rouault and Fernand Leger to Landers and his sister, Jody.

“It was such a wonderful feeling to roll out his carpets and the nickel Deco lamps he had bought in Austria,” says Landers, 50. “I wasn’t trying to re-create the past, because I am a forward-thinking person, but it was gratifying and emotional to see these things returned to their proper places.”

The move was particularly easy for Gianopulos, 42, a Brooklyn native.

“I was entering a new chapter of my life,” she says. “I brought my black clothes and sneakers from New York, my antique linens, photographs and sterling.”

She has been collecting silver since she began her career in magazine publishing. It’s a tradition her Greek mother began when she registered for sterling instead of the more traditional wedding gift of cash.

“When I was growing up, I would sit and help polish, and she would tell me the story behind every piece,” Gianopulos says.

Tales lie behind her collection as well. The Tiffany & Co. Witchball table lighter she scored for $20 at a Long Island tag sale is now worth $1,000. The miniature kouros statuette in silver came from an Athens museum. Antique and Deco sterling pieces and classic hotel and cafe china were picked up during three post-college sojourns in Paris.

“My eye, my instinct, goes to things that are French,” she says.

Today her treasures adorn bookcases, shelves, a black baby grand piano and the tops of antique tables, including one in the ornate late 18th century Italian Directoire style and an early 19th century Biedermeier, as well as a contemporary gilded iron and glass design from A. Rudin.

Despite the heirloom furniture and fine floor coverings, the Landers household, which includes the keeshonden Halle and Lucy, has a comfortable and casual elegance.

It is a look that Arch-Interiors decorator Christopher Grubb, who worked with the couple, refers to as a 21st century form of “transitional,” which he defines as “a mix of antiques and timeless contemporary pieces.”

THE decorating process took a gentle curve when Gianopulos learned that she was expecting. “Pregnancy changes how you feel about a house and what you need to do to make it a family home,” she says -- something more than baby latches and plastic caps for electrical outlets.

“It meant Ultrasuede and chenille, and Scotchgard fabrics,” she explains. It also meant a pool and spa designed with an infant in mind. Rather than re-creating the black-bottom pool that Landers’ father built, they installed a new one (finished eight months ago, the week daughter Sophia was born) that provides better visibility. The white plaster finish takes on a blue cast from the reflection of Italian glass tiles.

In the couple’s beloved sunroom, Grubb added luxury and functionality with a classic leather sofa, swiveling linen club chairs and a coffee table with extending side panels, all from Barclay Butera. Grubb had custom blue faux suede ottomans constructed with hinged tops so that they could serve as chests for toys and baby blankets.

In other rooms, the challenge was finding furniture that blended with Ehrlich’s design.

“The house is so strong architecturally with all that masculine wood paneling that I could easily see some people going all Craftsmen or even Asian with it,” says Grubb, who covered the off-white walls in cozy European shades of claret and champignon. “An interior is really about the people and their lifestyle. The Landers are sophisticated people who represent a new kind of transitional style, one that is uncluttered and comfortable.”

Husband and wife each brought professional experience to the table during the renovation and redecoration. Gianopulos, a self-described Type A and former events planner for Conde Nast magazines, meticulously documented every step of the decorating process (see sidebar).

Landers, whose duties as senior vice president for Sony Music include selecting songs for performers as diverse as Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Jesse McCartney and Hilary Duff, applied the same exacting process when it came to furnishing his home.

“What I look for in music, be it Stephen Sondheim or Justin Timberlake, is an artistic expression of the truth,” he says. “That is the same thing I look for in an antique table or a new sofa. It should have a certain weight to it without being overbearing. It should be well made and look traditional without appearing ostentatious.”

Though he collects books and recordings -- about 5,000 wait to be alphabetized in storage rooms behind the house -- Landers has no qualms about reupholstering chairs or buying period reproduction pieces, like a dining table and chairs from the West Hollywood retailer Grange.

“Once I have something that is right, I don’t need to replace it,” he says. “The biggest compliment people pay me is when they tell me it looks like you lived here forever -- which, in some ways, I have.”

Last Sunday, the couple celebrated their first Father’s Day with Sophia in the house that her grandfather built. Extended family arrived to join the festivities. Nieces splashed in the shallow end of the pool, chicken skewers sizzled on the grill, and guests lounged on teak chaises and chairs inside a gazebo-style patinated metal pavilion.

“Jay’s the kid who ate in restaurants with his parents,” Gianopulos says. “I’m the one who always sat down to dinner at home with 20 relatives and friends at the table.”

Landers says he’s “carrying on the tradition of entertaining that my father began at this house. Now that it is complete, we are having all the family occasions here.” He imagines the kind of evenings he spent with his dad, sitting around the piano with songwriter friends, hearing tunes for the first time.

“I’m not a deeply religious person,” he says, “but the story of this house does have a mystical quality. I get sustenance from my family, whether they are here or not. Having returned to my roots in maturity, I now appreciate it even more. Being able to share it with my wife and daughter, this house has a new meaning.”

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David A. Keeps can be reached at david.keeps@latimes.com.

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Make record-keeping part of the process

Anyone who has embarked on a major remodeling or redecorating project knows just how many headaches the process can induce. For Despina Gianopulos, redecorating was particularly daunting. “I hate being disorganized,” she says. Her solution: binders in which she meticulously tracked all work. Besides being an organizational tool and a time-saver, the binders proved important to the bottom line. Gianopulos’ 10-step guide for a stress-reducing system:

1. Buy binders. For every part of the project -- structural remodeling, decorating, landscaping -- buy a three-ring binder and fill it with plastic sleeves and divider tabs for each aspect of the job (rugs, fabrics, appliances, furniture, etc.).

2. At the front of each binder, insert plastic sleeves that can hold the business cards of vendors, contractors and repair technicians.

3. Create a special section for things that inspire you, be it a picture from a magazine, an old family photo or a swatch of fabric.

4. Use the plastic sleeves in each section of your binder to hold all the paperwork you might need during -- and after -- the job. Include catalog pages, order forms, estimates, invoices, delivery notices, warranties and correspondence. It is helpful to have printouts of e-mails, especially if you talk to vendors about late deliveries or substandard work.

5. Try to get as much documentation about antiques as you can. If you buy something at auction, save the page from the catalog. If it is an expensive piece, consider having it appraised.

6. Keep the sketches, invoices and material specifications for custom design work, whether it’s kitchen cabinetry or a piece of living room furniture.

7. Keep your budget on track by reviewing and updating estimates and costs in your binder. The easiest way to overspend is to stop paying attention to actual costs.

8. Keep the binders in a handy place so you have easy access every time you need to call or e-mail someone for a repair or reorder.

9. Keep “before,” “during” and “after” photos as documentation for yourself and as inspiration for family and friends embarking on renovations of their own. The photos also might inspire your own future projects.

10. Hold onto the binder after all the work is done. When you’re ready to sell the house or the furniture, you will have all the receipts in fine order for the next buyer -- and your accountant will love you.

-- David A. Keeps