A Montecito house with unexpectedly rich interiors by VSP Interiors

The only slight hitch was that the pandemic was in full swing at this point, and so most of the project, remarkably, was conducted over Zoom. “She walked me through the house in the morning, afternoon and evening so I could see exactly how the light changed. We sent her millions of samples. And then eventually, when restrictions lifted, we filled two huge containers with antiques and rugs and flew over to install it.”

The coherence of the interiors make it hard to believe that things were done in this way, but Annie's taste had a clear, specific direction that made it easy for Henriette to create schemes and find the perfect pieces. “She has a particular eye for beautiful things,” says Henriette, “and has nothing in her house that is not exquisite." Italy, and particularly Sicily, has a special appeal for Annie, and there is a kind of Renaissance grandeur to many elements of the house, such as the spectacular Italian canopy bed in the spare bedroom and the Fortuny-covered sofa in the drawing room ("we call it the palazzo sofa"). Most showstopping of all is the Iksel wallcovering in the cinema room, which was inspired by a Sicilian palace and shades into a ceiling painted with stars. Antique rugs in each room, with their beautiful reds, golds and blues, were the starting point for the colour schemes, which also tie in with the client's love of antique icons.

All of this has been successfully incorporated into a uniquely Californian house, built into the walls of a canyon and determinedly open-plan in its layout. “It's rather magical,” explains Henriette, “sitting very quietly amidst the steep canyon walls in the middle of huge old oak trees, and every room has the most magical view of the sea.” But the layout posed some challenges. “The kitchen is in the middle of the house, and all the other rooms – the drawing room and dining room and so on – open out from it. So you have these huge vistas all through the house, which is wonderful, but the client also wanted to have the option to close spaces off and use them as discrete rooms, rather than having everything completely open.” The solution was to use curtains, and this has provided another opportunity to layer in beautiful, characterful textiles, such as a pair of tapestries from Julia Boston that divide the library from the drawing room. The windows, meanwhile, are dressed in chik blinds or antique Anatolian linen panels from Robert Kime hand-stitched together to make curtains. “The light in California can be very strong,” says Henriette, “but those curtains really soften and diffuse it.”