My Favorite Room: Paul Greene lets well-traveled pieces tell the story
Paul Greene had a heartfelt objective when designing the interior of his Culver City-adjacent home — every piece in it should be meaningful, have a story and have lived elsewhere before landing in his place.
The actor and musician plays Dr. Carson Shepherd on the Hallmark series “When Calls the Heart,” set in a Canadian frontier town in the early 1900s. The network renewed the series in April for a seventh season, delighting millions of obsessive fans who call themselves “hearties.”
“People love it because it’s an escape into a world where everything works,” Greene said. “It’s a healing balm.”
He hopes the same is true for the living room of his 2,000-square-foot Craftsman-style home, which he shares with his fiancee, entrepreneur and actress Kate Austin, and his teenage son, Oliver. The inviting space has Buddha and Ganesh statues arrayed on shelves and pillar candles flickering in a white-brick fireplace. It harbors his Taylor guitar and upright piano, as well as a snowy faux-fur throw atop a deep sofa, in a soothing shade. But it’s also a repository of wellness gadgets — including an infrared heating pad and a mat used for “pulsed electromagnetic field therapy” — which stay tucked away until required.
Why is this your favorite room?
Everything you need to feel good is in this room. It is the heart of the home. It’s a mix of the ultimate in coziness and high tech, but the high tech is hidden because we didn’t want it to look like a lab. We have things like an ozone generator to improve the air we breathe, a mini-rebounder to jump on and an ionic foot bath that helps detoxify the body. It’s all preventative and longevity-based, as we are constantly discovering what makes the body feel good.
What else are some of the things you love doing in here?
I entertain here. I’ll have a small group of friends over and I play my own music and some covers. We also work out in here; we will pull out our yoga mats and do a session. We meditate. We allow a lot of laughter in this room and a lot of healing.
As far as the furnishings go, did you put it together yourself?
This is how design works for me: Everything is there, and then it’s subtractive. You take things away and that becomes your house. Take away anything that doesn’t serve your house and spark joy.
What are some of the pieces in here that spark joy in you?
There is this stained glass piece of a woman by the water. I love her. At certain times of the day she gets even more magnificent and sometimes the whole room oddly turns those colors. And those prints — they are original from Paris from the 1930s. I got them at the Rose Bowl Flea Market.
You’re a fan of flea markets and thrift stores?
You’ve got to be resourceful. That couch is a $15,000 hand-sewn Italian piece. I bought it [for $1,000] at BTS Thrift Store, which supports Beit T’Shuvah, an addiction treatment center. It’s a win-win. We’ve bought things from Melrose Trading Post and the Long Beach Antique Market. There was maybe something new from HD Buttercup, but I got it at one of their 80%-off sales.
How do you choose what goes into this space?
I’m pretty thrifty and I can’t stand wasting money on things that don’t mean anything. Maybe it’s because I grew up on a farm; it was a simple way of living. That’s why I don’t understand it when people go shopping for the sake of shopping. Show me a market where something has soul. Everything has to have a story and to mean something for me to love it.
