A mid-century beach house in Southern California stylishly updated for the modern day
If you were to find yourself inside this mid-century house in Southern California, you’d be forgiven for thinking you had stepped into a Slim Aarons photograph – dropped into the middle of a glamorous 1970s party, surrounded by angular architecture typical of the time. It might be a few seconds before you noticed the telltale signs that while the house was built some 60 years ago, it has been carefully updated since. The array of contemporary fabrics, wallpapers, and rugs woven into the house’s mid-century fabric suggest that a clever designer has been hard at work.
The designer in question is San Francisco-based Leah O’Connell, whose unusual path to interior design is one of the many things she credits for her style. She was a buyer for Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware before opening her own children’s clothing boutique. When a friend asked for help redoing her house, Leah discovered her love – and knack – for interiors. She formally launched her studio in 2014, through which she also sells her own fabric and wallpaper (and soon, furniture), and credits her lack of formal training for her free, instinctive style. She is a designer who relies on intuition rather than tuition, and the resulting spaces are unique and layered — taking inspiration from sources that range from Old Hollywood glamour to traditional English designers such as Robert Kime, Guy Goodfellow and Penny Morrison.
The owners had worked with Leah on a previous project and called upon her to transform the beachfront house, which hadn’t been touched since it was built in the 1960s and was starting to come apart at the seams. It was to be a comfortable family home which could easily host guests for long summer parties. Santa Barbara-based Appleton Architects laid the foundations – quite literally because the house had none. ‘Before, it was just built directly onto poles in the sand. It was taken right back to the studs’, explains Leah of the house before it was carefully reconstructed. A particularly impressive addition is the hidden concrete slab that was built underneath the house to minimise flooding.
Leah’s task was preserving the original fabric of the building while adding colour and pattern to give the space a layered feel. ‘There was something lovely about the weird angles – they were charming, and belonged to the house’, says Leah. Thus, the footprint remains largely the same: the lateral, U-shaped structure houses a kitchen, bar, sitting room, family room, multi-purpose room, bunk room and two bedrooms downstairs, with two additional bedrooms upstairs. Internal walls – most likely later additions – were removed to open up the space (‘we wanted there to be a sea view from every room’, explains Leah), and so a curiously positioned bedroom in the middle of the ground floor, with no west-facing windows, was knocked through and in its place now is a comfortable family room where a built-in bench hugs the walls.
‘Once you have found the North Star of a project, it’s easy’, Leah says of the sandy-coloured Alder wood that she installed liberally on the walls, ceilings and floors. ‘A friend of mine has a beach house that was built around the same time and the whole thing is covered in wood’, she says. ‘I knew we had to embrace this look: it feels clean and modern but warm’. The material is quite at home in the mid-century space, reminiscent of the designs of Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Gehry and Richard Neutra, who shot to fame in the middle of the 20th century thanks to their material-driven, unfrilly approach to design. Nods to this movement are scattered throughout, in the Paul Frankl-style ‘Pretzel’ chair (fittingly upholstered in a Josef Frank fabric) and the teak Danish ‘Gondola’ sofa in the open-plan sitting room.
With the backdrop in place, Leah’s task was to marry these elements with what she describes as a ‘traditional’ sensibility – and this is where her love of British design and other, somewhat unexpected touches come into play. ‘I knew right away that I wanted to lean into a Scandinavian aesthetic' says Leah. As such, the rugs – all of which are hand-knotted kilims designed by Leah – are based on traditional Swedish motifs. ‘I didn't want to distract from the sanctuary-like feeling inside or the views outside’, she says, so pops of strong colour are restricted to textiles, wallpapers and smaller, less-used rooms.
The built-in bench in the snug is upholstered in a fabric of Leah’s design, inspired by traditional Ghanaian Kente cloths, while the walls of the downstairs loo are battened with an Italianesque citrus wallpaper from Jennifer Shorto, with a vintage Italian cane mirror hung above the sink. Mediterranean-style terracotta tiles line the walls in the kitchen.
In the utility room, cork tiles on the floor rub shoulders with bright-blue tongue and groove joinery – painted in ‘Blue Jean’ by Benjamin Moore – which would be quite at home in an English country house. The same could be said of the Penny Morrison bolster cushions in the family room, or the floral wallpaper in the dressing room upstairs, where a ruffle-skirted footstool is covered in a matching fabric. ‘Sometimes, having fallen into this business is a good thing’, laughs Leah. ‘I don’t really know what things “should” look like or what “goes together”. Maybe an English bootroom ‘shouldn't’ sit in a 1960s beach house, but I think it works and happily, so does my client’.
One of Leah's proudest achievements is undoubtedly the vast dining room-turned-multi-purpose room, which occupies most of a wing of the house. ‘The very first thing my client said to me was that this room would need space for yoga in the morning, lunch and bridge in the afternoon, an elegant dinner party at night and a disco afterwards’, explains Leah. Thrilled by the task at hand, she designed a large teak table, which can be divided into four square tables for afternoon bridge games. When the room needs to be cleared for yoga or a party, the weatherproof wood can be moved outside to the terrace beyond. Yoga mats are stashed in built-in cupboards in the walls, and retractable disco lights descend from the ceiling. Outside, the internal courtyard bursts with tropical planting and plays host to a two-bedroom guest cottage, where Casa Branca’s ‘Foglia’ wallpaper and window surrounds painted in ‘Breakfast Room Green’ by Farrow & Ball frame the garden beyond.
There is an excitement in Leah’s voice when she talks about the house. ‘It has all the essence of a 1950s beach house, but it’s had an upgrade’, she says. ‘It feels exactly as it was always supposed to be, except with the buttons done up’.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn1/12Appleton Architects worked with Channel Builders to open up this large, open-plan sitting room. Leah and the owners wanted the view to take centre stage, and so a harmonious - mostly wooden - scheme is lightly dressed with a range of textiles including Cowtan & Tout’s ‘Dylan’ on the sectional sofa and a custom wool flatweave rug designed by Leah. The vintage Antimott lounge chairs are designed by Wilhelm Knoll.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn2/12Formerly a bedroom with internal walls separating it from the sitting room, the family room is anchored by a large wrap-around bench. On top is a cushion covered in a Kente-cloth inspired fabric that Leah designed, called ‘Satchel’. The ‘Moreno’ ottomans are from Lawson Fenning and upholstered in ‘Dylan’ by Cowtan & Tout.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn3/12An airy hallway clad in alder wood - a fitting choice for this mid-century space.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn4/12Called the ‘ante room’, this mudroom is reminiscent of an English country house. The tongue and groove joinery is painted in ‘Sunbury Yellow’ by Farrow & Ball, and the window seat is upholstered in Guy Goodfellow’s ‘Olive Sacking’.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn5/12The downstairs loo is a nod to the nearby Ojai Valley pixie tangerine groves: walls are covered in ‘Orange and Leaves’ wallpaper by Jennifer Shorto, with a vintage Italian cane mirror from Litten Tree Antiques hung above the sink.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn6/12Leah designed the dining table so that when sat around it, you can enjoy the ocean view beyond. The chairs are ‘Luccio Side Chairs’ by Julian Chichester.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn7/12The colourful mosaic tiles on the floor of the main bathroom add a subtle pop of colour. The bathtub is from Waterworks.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn8/12There is an English sensibility in the walk-in wardrobe next to the main bedroom, thanks to the ruffle-skirted footstool upholstered in ‘Tasha’ in Julep, designed by Leah O’Connell, with matching wallpaper on the walls.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn9/12The scalloped wardrobe in the guest bedroom is a design of Leah’s.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn10/12In front of the window sits a vintage Arne Vodder armchair upholstered in ‘Daffodil’ by Sandra Jordan Prima Alpaca.
Jess Isaac; styled by Kate Flynn11/12In need of a perch from which to enjoy the view from the roof terrace, Leah added two ‘Ojai’ daybeds from House of Leon, covered in a startling green fabric from Sunbrella.
Kort Havens; styled by Kate Flynn12/12Outside, the internal courtyard bursts with tropical planting and plays host to a two-bedroom guest cottage, where Casa Branca’s ‘Foglia’ wallpaper and window surrounds painted in ‘Breakfast Room Green’ by Farrow & Ball frame the garden beyond.
