A Nature-Facing Experience Like No Other
Perched on a knoll in Los Angeles’s historic Hollywood Hills, is a skybox-like home that offers extraordinary panoramas of downtown LA. It also offers is a nature-facing experience like no other, with the sky and sunlight cocooning the interior as if it were part of its very skin. When Russell Holthouse, principal at Vantage Design Group, first saw the home, it was a far cry from its present avatar. “The neighbourhood is known for its winding streets, celebrity residences and excellent downtown views. But the original house was oriented away from the city,” recalls Russell, whose firm was tasked with transforming the home into a warm and welcoming haven for entertaining.
An Ever Unfolding Story
From the street, Tanager Way House gives little away. The facade appears opaque, a functional intervention pointed at preserving privacy. The interior, however, is an altogether different story. A larger-than-life pivot door heralds visitors into a vestibule that serves as a world unto itself. “The door can be left open for long periods of time for whole groups of people to enter together. There’s enough space to linger around before coming inside,” says Russell.
In an effort to maintain a seamless transition between the interior and exterior, Vantage Design Group opted for Eco Outdoor’s Scala® Travertine, a terrestrial limestone that works equally well across indoor and outdoor environments.
Scala® Cross Cut - Always There & Always Elegant
Scala® Cross Cut flooring is used throughout the entrance, living area, dining area and entertaining area. It also appears on the wraparound balcony, the pool coping, and the stairs leading down to the pool. It serves as a sweeping backdrop to the house, parlaying from one room to the next, while harmonising the various realms with its unassuming presence. “It’s always there, always elegant, but never the centre of attention.”
A Nuanced Material Palette
The challenge with a house of this scale, and with views as distant as this, was to create spaces that felt warm and inviting. The solution, Russell found, lay in constructing a nuanced material palette, with rich grains and textures. He elected to use robust walnut wood for the primary cabinetry, a vein-cut silver travertine with prominent dark veins for the fireplace cladding, and added Ceppo di Gré-style benchtops. This layered materiality, which features darker, deeper tones and textures, is balanced by the soft neutrality of the Scala travertine flooring. The result was an equal marriage of soft and dark tones, with the travertine underpinning the darker materials in the periphery.
