Interior design as a travelogue - home of David and Lee Chemel

Sunset, March, 1996 by Jeff Book

Complementary cultural influences give this remodeled home serenity and style

The interior of David and Lee Chemel's home in L.A.'s Los Feliz district deftly blends several of the traditions - Spanish colonial revival, Southwestern, Arts and Crafts, Asian - that have contributed to Southern California's design history. "What they have in common is beautiful craftsmanship," notes Lee. Her husband adds, "We weren't thinking about blending cultures, but living with things we love, things made with great care." The Chemels oversaw the interior design themselves. Like the Native American crafts that recall the Chemels' travels in Arizona, the eclectic furnishings evoke far-flung places, although most were purchased locally.

"This house is a travelogue," says Santa Monica architect Polly Osborne. Her firm, Osborne Erickson Architects, was in charge of remodeling the already much-modified 1923 structure, correcting traffic-flow problems and replacing an earlier kitchen and dining room addition with a new one capped with a lofty master suite.

The house's Spanish colonial revival architecture, with its thick walls, archways, and wrought-iron entrance hall screen, is an apt backdrop for handcrafted objects. In the master bedroom, rough-hewn Mexican night-stands, Craftsman-style copper lamps, Navajo rags, a Japanese painted screen, and a timeworn Pakistani chest achieve a striking harmony (the chest, at the foot of the bed, conceals a TV on a motorized lift). An Edo-period Japanese carved-wood transom tops the fireplace alcove, where a Hopi kachina doll and other Native American objects mingle with a California plein air painting and an old-fashioned American rocking chair.

Light from high windows washes the master bedroom's honey-hued walls, which were faux-painted for a mottled effect, says David Chemel, "to tone down white walls that were too bright." Light reaches the adjacent wardrobe area through open shelves. In the master bath, deeply recessed skylights splash sunshine over a big oval bathtub surrounded by rustic tile. Attention to detail is evident throughout. Instead of being tightly fitted, the edges of the master suite's tongue-and-groove flooring were softened to make them seem older.

The interior celebrates history but doesn't neglect modern amenities: for example, a new dumbwaiter brings groceries from the garage directly to the kitchen pantry. The kitchen now flows into the dining room, which opens on two sides through French doors to a trellis-roofed veranda that functions as an outdoor living area. The new gently curved dining room ceiling echoes the original ceiling in the living room. The border between the existing house and the addition is marked in the dining room and the master bedroom by white plaster fireplaces with niches for display or wood storage. Old and new structures are integrated as gracefully as the objects from diverse cultures. "There's a common thread among cultures, in which art and craft merge," says Lee. "The house reflects that unity."