A Tudor-Style Home Redo Keeps The Vintage Charm

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traditional living room with green...

For a Tudor-style abode in West Los Angeles, a transformation adds space while maintaining its vintage charm.

traditional exterior of a Tudor-style...

Designer Paige Pierce collaborated with residential designer Jesse Harrison and architect Anthony Spann as well as landscape designer Teryl Ciarlo to expand and update Katie and Brian Anderson's Tudor-style home in West Los Angeles.

traditional neutral living room with...

In the living room, Pierce arranged a vintage wing chair from Nickey-Kehoe, a pair of Lee Industries armchairs from Witford upholstered in moss green velvet, and a coffee table from Serena & Lily. The grouping stands on a Pottery Barn rug. The bone inlay stool is from One Kings Lane; the drapery fabric is by Dural.

traditional living room with a...

The family room, which is open to the kitchen, includes an RH sofa upholstered in Perennials linen, a Jamie Young Co. coffee table and a Dash & Albert rug. A Lucite console from CB2 and a mirror from Ballard Designs add touches of glam and whimsy.

traditional white kitchen with a...

Pendants by Regina Andrew hover above a large island painted in Pale Smoke from Benjamin Moore and dressed with quartz from Artisan Tile & Stonework; counter stools from CB2 pull up to the space. Glazed terra-cotta subway tile from Mission Tile West is on the backsplash. The Wolf range and Waterstone faucets are from Snyder Diamond. Engineered European oak from H & A Hardwood Flooring yields a striking contrast.

traditional blue dining room in...

General contractors Arturo Mora and Leo Mora's company handled the millwork in the dining room, which is painted in Sherwin-Williams Sporty Blue. Leaf-motif Brunschwig & Fils wallpaper brings a playful touch. A brass chandelier from Circa Lighting is above a table from One Kings Lane and chairs from Ballard Designs with seats in Perennials fabric. A shade in a textile from World Linen hangs at the Marvin windows.

traditional entryway with a white...

In the entry, Pierce placed a console from Wisteria and a Vietnamese ceramic Fu dog from Bamboora. Currey & Company's geometric Lynworth Lantern lends an artful quality to the space. The buffet visible in the dining room is by Worlds Away.

traditional white bathroom with pale...

Statuary marble from Mission Tile West covers the master bath's shower and the floor. Calacatta marble from Marble Unlimited tops the vanity painted in Sherwin-Williams Hinting Blue and inset with Rohl faucets from Snyder Diamond. The fanciful stool is by Ballard Designs; the antique mirror is by Bungalow 5; and the sconces are by Circa Lighting.

traditional bathroom with white cabinetry...

In the powder room, animal-print wallpaper from Clarence House provides a backdrop for a pair of understated brass sconces by Circa Lighting. The vanity counter and backsplash are Carrara marble from Artisan Tile & Stonework. The Toto sink and Newport Brass faucet are from Snyder Diamond.

traditional white bedroom with blue...

A swing-arm sconce by Circa Lighting illuminates the linen-upholstered bed from Serena & Lily in the master bedroom. Pierce accented it with Euro shams in Elizabeth Eakins linen. The shade fabric is by Jeffrey Alan Marks from The Shade Store. Nearby is artwork by Michele Feder from Mecox.

traditional outdoor dining area in...

Accessible via Marvin doors from Arcadia Sash & Door, the patio dining area has a large stone-topped table and campaign chairs, all from Ballard Designs. Bluestone tile from Artisan Tile & Stonework paves the space. A garden bench from Teak Warehouse offers more seating.

For design pros, working with friends and family can be a dicey proposition. How will your relationship play out now that your friends have become clients? Will it survive the potential stress? Will the bond endure once the furniture is in place and all the artwork is hung? Happily, for designer Paige Pierce, who was tapped by longtime friends Katie and Brian Anderson to revamp their 1930s Tudor-style home in West Los Angeles, the answer to the final query was a resounding yes. “This was one of the easier projects I’ve done,” says Pierce. “I know Katie so well and understand the way her family lives and uses their home.”

Seeking a logically organized floor plan, increased square footage and more comfortable furnishings for their residence of five years, the Andersons approached Pierce, whom Katie had known since high school. Pierce helped them connect with residential designer Jesse Harrison and architect Anthony Spann to reinvent the structure. “It was one of those typical older L.A. houses that’s not intuitive for how we live today,” Harrison says. The makeover included converting a bedroom and a bath into an open-plan kitchen and family room and linking them to the rear yard via glass doors. “The clients like to entertain, have family and friends over and wanted to be able to see the kids playing outside while they cook and hang out,” Harrison says. A couple of bedrooms on one side of the living room were also eliminated; then a large master suite was created and two new bedrooms for the children were added above it.

“That living room is the core of the house. Preserving the vaulted ceiling meant we had to build above the master bedroom,” says Harrison, noting, “The hardest thing to do is a two-story addition to a cottage because you don’t want it to stick out like a sore thumb.” To help harmonize old and new, general contractors Arturo Mora and Leo Mora incorporated Tudor-style millwork on the façade. “It ties to the original architecture,” says Arturo Mora, who also added a Tudor-style chimney. “I gave it more of a historical design,” he says. “The right chimney on the front of a house is important.”

With Pierce leading the charge, the front elevation received other updates. The stucco was painted a bright white and the front door a crisp navy blue–a hue the designer brought inside too. “I always make sure there’s a lot of color and pattern at play,” she says. “It’s how I think people like to live. It makes them happy. I’m not the designer to choose if you want to go neutral. Color and pattern make a home unique and personal.” To that end, she outfitted the dining room walls with a periwinkle-and-white leaf-motif wallpaper and painted the wainscoting and coffered ceiling, establishing a cool, layered feeling in the space. Pierce also painted the large quartz-topped kitchen island a pale blue and selected brass stools upholstered with navy blue faux leather; white-painted wood cabinetry and white subway tile on the backsplash surround the blue of the island and the stools, making them tranquil focal points.

In the living room, which connects to the lush rear yard, Pierce employed touches of green. “When you’re in the house you see a lot of foliage in the front and backyard so I felt like green was an obvious color to tie in and help with the indoor-outdoor feel we wanted to achieve,” she says. Complementing the blue sofa are blue-and-green patterned draperies, along with a vintage wing chair covered in an emerald-and-cream botanical print fabric and a pair of armchairs wrapped in moss green velvet. The mix, which also includes a Chippendale-style secretary and a tufted bench with turned legs, conveys a collected-over-time feel, as if it were conjured from the pages of a favorite fairy-tale.

Landscape designer Teryl Ciarlo had a similarly idyllic intention outside. “I used a boxwood hedge in the front to make clean lines,” says Ciarlo, who also planted ficus nitida–and climbing roses for a storybook touch. In the backyard, a small herb garden wraps around the base of a mature lemon tree, and more boxwood hedges border a flat lawn. It adds up to the perfect setting for the Andersons and their friends. “There’s a wine tap on the terrace and they project movies on the side of the house,” says Pierce, who frequently visits. “Every time I go to the house, it makes me feel happy–I’m glad I still get to go there even though the project is over. That’s a unique thing to be able to do.”