Third Space

Los Angeles firm Chet Architecture crafts a deeply personal hillside home packed with primary colors—including a custom mural that now holds an even deeper meaning.

Before they bought their 1960 post-and-beam house in the hills overlooking Studio City in 2008, David and his wife, Laurie, each went to see it separately. "We both had the exact same feeling: This is our home" David recalls. "There was just a peaceful energy. It felt like us."

The new kitchen sink (with a California Faucet fixture) and Corian counter extend through operable La Cantina windows toward the pool area. Just beyond, David and Laurie’s son Asher takes a plunge.

After purchasing the property and spending several years there with their sons, Noah and Asher, David and Laurie were ready to remodel. The house had already been altered numerous times by previous owners, and the updates took it further and further away from its open plan and midcentury-modern style. "We always wanted to bring it back to what its origin was," David says. "And we knew that it needed some work."

The kitchen was small, with damaged flooring. And though the house came with an outdoor pool, many of the interior spaces either felt too dark or too glaringly bright. They’d even hung sheets outside the patio’s sliding-glass doors to reduce the harsh sunlight.

Before: Kitchen

Before: The original, relatively narrow galley-style kitchen was isolated from the other rooms, and its floors were damaged.

After: Kitchen

The relocated kitchen, where the TV area had been, has Villa Lagoon concrete floor tiles, Heath Ceramics island tiles, Schoolhouse Electric pendant lights, and Design Within Reach Valencia stools.

Working with Los Angeles firm Chet Architecture and founder Chet Callahan, they ultimately decided a move was in order—not to a new home, but to relocate their kitchen. It was a narrow, galley-style space, walled off from a large, adjacent family room and den that overlooked the pool but were being underutilized.

Callahan—whom the couple met because their children attended the same school—understood that Laurie and David wanted to be able to entertain. "They really wanted the kitchen to be the centerpiece of that entertaining space," he explains.

Before: Breakfast Nook

Before: A view of the original breakfast nook, before the walls were reconfigured to change the living room layout.

After: Breakfast Nook

The new breakfast nook pairs a custom bench and table, both manufactured by Maneuverworks and surrounded by DWR Valencia chairs. A Flos wall sconce and a Schoolhouse Electric Luna pendant light illuminate the space.

The breakfast nook’s custom bench includes cushioning covered with Maharam Fabric. Its oak base matches the floors.

Before: Pool and Patio

Before: The family used the existing home’s outdoor patio and pool frequently, but the lack of a roof overhang above the glass doors and clerestory windows often created glare inside.

After: Pool and Patio

An extended trellis helps shade the patio. Yellow Emu Living stools sit below the operable La Cantina doors. At right are an outdoor table and chairs from DWR’s 1966 series.

"Laurie and David wanted to create this space that felt comfortable for their family and for their friends to come together and commune," Callahan says. "The kids can swim, and the parents can have a glass of wine. The kitchen becomes this very public space that’s surrounded on all sides by the pool, breakfast room, and lounge, and then beyond that the living room and dining room. It’s this kind of island, this floating space within all these other social spaces."

A view looking from the kitchen to the breakfast nook. The white kitchen is complemented by pops of color and natural texture, including Manzoni knobs and pulls for the drawers.

To bring color to the mostly white kitchen, Chet Architecture took color inspiration from the landscape outside—be it blue (from the pool) for beams and the trellis, or green (from the cypresses) for the Villa Lagoon concrete tile.

The kitchen has expansive countertops on three sides, facing the breakfast nook, den, and pool. On the pool side—a David Hockney painting come to life, where Noah and Asher love to swim and hang out—an outward-opening pair of windows connect the interior kitchen countertop to an outdoor bar, so those inside can serve or converse with those outside.

Although the kitchen itself is largely white—Laurie and David were inspired by the white kitchen in Callahan’s own home—this space is also full of color. Because the homeowners planned to eventually renovate the rest of their house, the designers took inspiration not from the existing color palette, but from the landscape outside.

The kitchen and den exist as one continuous space, with one side of the kitchen providing shelving. The tomato-red color of the post was inspired by flax plants outside.

"The blue beams in the kitchen are intended to be a mirror reflection of the pool outside," Callahan explains. "The floors of the kitchen are this deep green, which picks up on the cypress trees that you can see on the horizon." A single post at the corner of the kitchen was painted tomato red, inspired by flax plants in the garden.

In the space where the original kitchen was located (near the home’s entry), Chet Architecture installed an indoor garden and a custom bench with cushions made with Rebecca Atwood fabric. A Christopher Wrobleski patchwork pillow and a Mondos side table by Laun complete the scene. The wall painting is by Abel Macias.

David and Laurie’s son Noah plays guitar on a custom bench beside the indoor garden. A Haas Brothers stool sits atop a Kneeland CO. X Temple rug in a Vanora pattern.

Furthest from the wall of glass, the designers created a den lined with stained-oak bookshelves, a fireplace, and the TV. There aren’t any windows here, as the space shares walls with the garage and a bathroom, yet it’s filled with natural light and even greenery, thanks to an adjacent interior garden set beneath a large skylight.

Before: Den

Before: The den is located in the same place, but it now receives more light thanks to a nearby indoor garden. The design team enlarged the fireplace to give it more presence.

After: Den

The new den’s rebuilt fireplace is clad with the same Heath Ceramics tile as the kitchen island. Above it is a piece of textile art by Christopher Wrobleski. A vintage Hans Wegner chair with Maharam leather cushions sits near a San Rafael Paolo coffee table by Lawson Fenning.

Forming one side of the interior garden is a built-in love seat, one of numerous custom furnishings that populate the space. There’s also additional built-in seating along the fireplace wall, and most notably of all, a curvy, custom, yellow breakfast nook table with red-cushioned banquette seating. The setup provides a range of seating options for entertaining and events, including an upcoming bar mitzvah that could bring as many as 200 people to the 2,957-square-foot house.

Before: Bathroom

Before: The existing bathroom was small for a family of four, and its finishes were dated.

After: Bathroom

The new bathroom, near the pool and deck, was designed to be resilient to water, with Heath Ceramic tiles cladding both the walls and floors. The California Faucet fixtures come directly out of the wall, above a Duravit sink, next to a Pottery Barn Windsor mirror and a Quiet Town curtain.

Throughout the approximately year-long construction, the family remained in the house.

"We walled off the entry area between the rest of the house, and what would become our new family room and kitchen," David explains. "And then in the dining room, we set up a temporary kitchen and lived out of that part of the house for as long as we needed to. The old kitchen had shared a wall with our dining room, so all we really needed to do was reverse the piping to the other side of the same wall."

The house was designed for entertaining, and the kitchen and its expansive counters were inspired by a local coffee bar.

Before the renovation was completed, Callahan commissioned a local artist, Adrian Kay Wong (https://adriankaywong.com/), to create a custom mural along an outside wall near the pool. Wong worked with Laurie to plan a colorful homage to the family, fusing geometric abstraction and representational images. At the center of the mural is a vase holding a flower, and to each side is a series of layered circles representing wine glasses. A curvy diamond represents the view. At the top of the mural is a dragonfly, and at the bottom is its shadow.

Though an artist-commissioned mural is uncommon for a single-family home, Callahan is a strong proponent. "The cost in many cases is not much more than a beautiful high-end wallpaper," he says. "Artists see space in a completely different way than we see it, and they always bring something to the project that we never imagined."

Artist Adrian Kay Wong created a custom mural with input from the homeowners, particularly Laurie. Its yellow tones matches the Emu Living barstools in the foreground.

The mural holds even more significance for the family today. David and Laurie first decided to move forward with the remodel at a moment in time when Laurie was in remission from an illness she had first been diagnosed with back in 2017. But about a year after the remodel was completed, Laurie died.

"Laurie and I created a very close family with our two boys," David says. "The house was a very special place for all of us, and it continues to be a special place for me and my two sons because of the memories that we have."

"It’s this reference to her," Callahan says. "The mural really kind of summarizes the whole project."

A small home office, also overlooking the pool and patio, is just beyond the kitchen, with the same Villa Lagoon concrete tile flooring. The custom desk is paired with a vintage, red Kartell chair and a Ferm Living Ark dining chair.

Much as David, Noah, and Asher enjoy the renovated home—as a colorful, casual, social, and safe space to spend time together—one of their favorite touches is invisible.

"Behind the walls, there’s paintings that the four of us did: hearts on the wall and other attributes of love and laughter," David says. "Then the drywall was put up, so they won’t ever be seen, but they’re there. This house holds a lot of special vibration and memory."

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