Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Adrian in the 1940s
This is for those of you who have been following along with my Adrian posts. Surely I wasn't the only who was tantalized by that monkey house roof and left wanting to see more of the Adrian-Janet Gaynor residence? Well, no more sleepless nights....
The Adrians' Bel Air house was remodeled in 1951 with the help of architect Burton A. Schutt (pronounced Skutt), who is best known for designing the Bel-Air Hotel in 1945. In a town where all the secrets of greasepaint and stagecraft were intimate knowledge, it was very common to give an existing structure a cosmetic face-lift, instead of building from scratch.
Adrian was very involved with the project, and the interior was gutted and reimagined with a more contemporary open floorplan and floods of light.
The living room layers traditional furnishings, paintings of Africa by Adrian himself, and tribal artifacts collected on the couple's extensive travels.
Besides bearing testament to Adrian's penchant for animal skins, the sunroom also features Robsjohn-Gibbings sofa and armchairs, a slamming mirrored cocktail table, and a pair of African drums used as end tables (which would have been very at home at this summer's Hampton Designer Showhouse where all things African seem to be the trend du jour.)
All photos by Fred Lyon, from the April 1992 issue of Architectural Digest
11 comments:
These rooms are just so of the moment-I am really shocked. They appear to have stepped right out of Elle Decor September 09. Isn't it amazing. He was very Way ahead of his time. The color in the photos is gorgeous too- especially the first and I love the hanging of the Persian scenes. Really top notch post EEE. la
those doors! beautiful.
i LOVE these rooms.
WOW!!!
So glad to have started a little something about that house!
I think it might have been published when my friend lived there......she was a decorator.....I am going to try to find out.
It certainly could be in a magazine right this minute. Fabulous post!!
Pb
Adrian rented our house in the early 1930s before he bought his first house with Janet Gaynor in the SF Valley. I have one picture of the living room where he painted the floors black and used white urns.
Someone should do a book on his interiors!
Indeed a very cozy home designs. The couples do have of astonishing taste on art! And talent to design their own house!
What a wonderful place to live in. this is the kind of home I wanted for my family very warm and loving environment for the children and very artistic too. I love it.
A very warm reception to Adrian's house, indeed! It just goes to show that if you are a great designer - be it gowns or something else - chances are you can design anything.
Annie, we would all love it if you would consider sharing that tantalizing photo from the 30s!
Penny, what a great postscript to the story to see Adrian's house now in the hands of your friend - no doubt, it's fabulous! please let me know if you find out what mag it was in...
Love the twists this story has taken. And I so agree with you about designer skills being transferrable to other areas.There is probably a designer genome in the DNA! I do wonder about designer skills jumping to other animal species (like the swine flu) and wonder if Penny's roosters have more artistic talents after roosting in Adrian's masterpiece. Wouldn't it be a wonderful image to see these rooster's hens's eggs! Hope your day is sunny side up!
I will scan the photo of Adrian's version of our living room and post it.The house is mentioned in last year's book on his work.
This house is like a dream house... i love this house. its give me more idea on how to make my house more beautiful just like this. :)
These place is great one.. its so colorful and it people here in the images look very good people..
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