Push open the gate and a small courtyard beckons the way into this ranch-style Newport Beach home, with a walkway leading past a burbling fountain, sculptural agaves, olive trees and—if you’re lucky—a hummingbird on the way to the entrance. There, a rustic Dutch front door emerges between a façade of cedar stained charcoal black. This dark wood siding continues into the entry, creating a moody hallway with a ceiling that starts low and gradually slopes up, leading into an open-concept great room with views out to the backyard. “There’s a cinematic drama to the entry sequence,” muses architect JR Walz, pointing to the series of progressively smaller spaces that visitors pass through. “A bit of compression happens, followed by this reveal of volume in the main living space.”
The house wasn’t always like this. In fact, when owners Leo and Danielle Johnson first walked in, Leo was so unimpressed that he walked right back out. However, the corner lot on a quiet cul-de-sac was exactly what the couple desired for their active family of five. Walz—whose opinion carries extra significance as he’s Danielle’s brother-in-law and Leo’s best friend from grade school—spotted the potential for what would become a fresh rendition of a modern farmhouse. “It needed a lot of work, but I felt that we could turn it into something great without tearing it down completely,” the architect recalls.
As the trio began dreaming, the Johnsons quickly realized that they’d need an interior designer to guide the renovation. Enter Tania Cassill, who loved their “not ‘just another modern farmhouse’ ” mentality. Among their first decisions together was that ebony-stained exterior, a color that stands out in their neighborhood. “Conceptually, we wanted something different, something sophisticated yet comfortable, and black is cool but also timeless,” says Leo.
Cassill took this idea straight to the heart of the home. “When I said I wanted to do a black kitchen, they weren’t afraid,” comments the designer, who deftly balanced a dark backsplash and range, graphic Panda marble across the 12-foot island, and warm brass pendants overhead. The flooring is also a deep black-brown, and Cassill championed connecting the interior to the exterior by bringing the black siding inside to wrap around the entry and kitchen. “It provides such a dramatic effect, and we kept the high ceiling white, so it doesn’t feel dim or cold,” she explains. “The exterior architecture doesn’t always need to match the interiors—there’s no rule about that—but the indoor-outdoor connection is very fluid here.”
The rest of the architectural program was more complex: The family needed four bedrooms and wanted each to have an en suite bathroom; Leo and Danielle both desired home offices; and the ability to easily entertain a crowd also topped their wish list. Walz pulled it off by taking down the walls dividing the kitchen, dining and living rooms to create a more voluminous space, raising the ceiling of the kitchen and engaging in plenty of reconfiguring. For instance, portions of the oversized primary bathroom and closet became a brand new bedroom suite. Cassill then created continuity between each area with a palette of blacks, whites, browns and blues.
The other major shift is the way indoor and outdoor spaces now flow. Walz replaced the existing doors of the living room with 25 feet of glass sliders that stack and tuck into the walls. “It really feels like the exterior is part of the house,” Walz says. “Being able to push the doors away completely makes everything feel so much more conducive to hosting.” Outside those doors lies a drought-tolerant, low-maintenance garden of mainly California natives designed by landscape architect Ty Price and installed by Orchard Landscaping. “The house as a dark backdrop really lends itself to pop the colors of the landscape,” Price shares. In keeping with the theme, even the perimeter fencing is painted a deep charcoal.
Perhaps surprisingly, one of the family’s favorite spaces nearly didn’t come to be. After falling in love with a California room—that is to say, a covered outdoor living space—at their rental house, Leo and Danielle debated adding something similar to their new home. Walz helped convince them to go for it, and it’s now where they gravitate for dinner parties. The architect quips, “I had a lot invested in this home because I was going to be here, looking at it, all the time.” And he is. As Danielle explains, “His family and kids spend more time at this house with us than anyone else. It’s almost like it’s made for them, too.”
