Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent, noted home designers, have sold this renovated project house in Hollywood Hills West. They purchased the house in 2015 for $2.36 million, and sold it for $2.885 million.
The Spanish Revival-style home dates to the 1920’s, and is wonderfully charming. The style and period’s nifty blend of softness and formality has been retained; stucco and wrought iron provide a nice balance of design tradition and warm-weather ease. All the gentle corners and rounded arches, and the Andalusian portal, comprise a heady effect of timelessness. Add to all that the eccentric layout, with its hidden surprises, and the result, after a bit of modernization, is a very comfortable abode indeed.
The house measures 3,600 square feet, and contains five bedrooms and five baths. The interior is almost entirely whitewashed—surely the work of Brent and Berkus—offering plenty of reflected light, and giving a desert-home sun-drenched effect, although the effect may be a little overplayed; even the kitchen, with its recessed lighting, white marble counters and whitewash, is so blanched it feels a little vacuous. A bath in soft yellow tile is a welcome change in an interior that is starved for color. A little judicious warm toning here and there wouldn’t have gone amiss, and would not have resulted in a diminished degree of light and space.
The exterior, especially the terrace with original terra-cotta tile and incorporated tree growth, is marvelous, a real escape in a neighborhood so developed. Views reach from the vine-covered trellis, and the lovely outline of the house itself, to the sylvan hills nearby. The stacked stone pool has no engineered pretensions of naturalism; its sense of authenticity arises out of the property’s history. Altogether, a beautiful example of why tasteful renovation is often preferable to teardown.
Jeremiah Brent is the host of the TLC network program ‘Home Made Simple,’ which features home design, repair, and culinary ideas.
Designer Nate Berkus appeared on his own television talk show, ‘The Nate Berkus Show,’ and was a regular contributor to Oprah. He is the author of ‘The Things That Matter,’ a compelling memoir about the establishment of personal identity.
‘Married to Design: Nate and Jeremiah, ’a design program involving the couple, is set to premiere this year on TLC.
