|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
About Steve :: Person ::
HomesSteve is a person who moves a lot. He's
had houses in Aspen, Colorado, Montecito, Beverly Hills, New York City, and
all over the place.
His tastes have changed from the pictured house where
there were no windows to the front to the more traditional houses he has
today.
These articles are about all aspects of his homes --
inside and out.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
L.A. Times
Thursday, February 22, 2001
Cozying Up to the Stars
Kathryn Ireland's eclectic take on English traditional home design has
gained her a star studded client roster.
By MIMI AVINS, Times Staff Writer
At only 224 years old, the United States often feels somewhat deficient,
tradition wise. So when a self confident Brit landed in Hollywood, complete
with a crisp accent, a sure sense of how a proper home should look and a
sense of humor to boot, she had a good shot at collecting acolytes.
Interior designer Kathryn Ireland's clients include Fran Drescher, Steve
Martin, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Lorne Michaels and Robert Zemeckis.
Along with a roster of socialites and moguls, they've hired the 39 year old,
Santa Monica based mother of three to decorate their Park Avenue apartments
and their Long Island beach houses, their Pacific Palisades mansions and
their Montecito retreats.
The look she gives them is homey, comfortable, family and dog friendly, with
large doses of color and a lack of orthodoxy. Though her style might seem
familiar, January House & Garden magazine included her among a list of "Ten
to Watch in 2001," a group of architects and designers they predict will
influence the style of the 21st century. Her success working among people
who could afford any feathers for their nests proves that while the shelter
magazines regularly tout new trends like mid century modern or Shaker
minimalism, the appeal of traditional English style endures.
Ireland is one of those polymorphously creative and fearless individuals who
just gets on with it, whatever "it" may be. When she first came to Los
Angeles 14 years ago, after working as an actress, designing a line of
women's clothes and running her own public relations company in her native
London, she helped her new husband, director Gary Weis, who made short comic
films for "Saturday Night Live" and rock videos.
She never dreamed of hiring anyone to help decorate the succession of houses
she and Weis rented as their family expanded. (Their sons are now 7, 9 and
11.) "When I grew up in England," she says, "no one had decorators. Anyone
who did was thought of as terribly nouveau riche. Here, we'd only rent a
house for a year or so, so I got very good at doing them up quickly." In
1990, she converted Weis' editing studio on Santa Monica's Main Street into
a store. Ireland Pays, named after the designer and her then partner,
actress Amanda Pays, was stocked with pillows, lampshades and other
accessories that Ireland acquired on trips to London. Meg Ryan, Candice
Bergen, Annette Bening and Maria Shriver were customers.
"From the shop, I started getting a few small jobs," Ireland says. "One
of them was Victoria Tennant and Steve Martin, who were married then. I made
all the curtains for their apartment in New York. Then when they divorced,
Steve came to dinner, and he looked around and said, 'I'd just love to live
in a house like this. I want something cozy.' "
* * *
The house that charmed Martin is a Spanish hacienda built in the '20s on
one of Santa Monica's tree lined streets, north of Montana Avenue. The decor
is Ireland eclectic an old wooden coffee table from Bali, a squooshy sofa
with colorful pillows scattered on it, an 18th century Italian chest that
was a gift from Ireland's mother, and a wall covered with a baker's dozen
portraits of Jesuit priests found in an antique shop.
"I live with a rather casual look," she says. "It isn't very mannered. With
my boys and the dogs, it can't be. I grew up around nice things. It was
important to my mother that we go to the best schools, so the friends I made
lived in wonderful homes in England and Europe that I was exposed to. It
does educate the eye, even if you don't know you're taking it all in."
Ireland's father was a stockbroker, and the family had homes in London and
on the Scottish shore. "Now, I know what's right when I see it. If I was a
butcher, you'd say I know how to cut meat. Sometimes I'll walk into a room
another decorator has done, and I'll see right away that the proportions of
the sofa are wrong. Some people just don't get it."
Fran Drescher used the same phrase in trying to explain what she enjoyed
about working with Ireland on her Malibu house. "I rarely can work with
other decorators because they either impose themselves on you, or they just
don't get it," she says. "When Kathryn's finished your house, it doesn't
look decorated, it just looks beautiful. What she creates has the relaxed
feeling we appreciate in California, but she has a wonderful eye for an
elegant look that isn't pretentious."
Evidence of Ireland's unerring eye is that clients hire her to do a house,
then engage her again. She's done three homes for Martin, two for
Schlossberg, Zemeckis' home and office. "I've actually worked with a lot of
single men, which is fabulous," she says, "because there's no one else
giving an opinion. I don't think my look is really feminine, anyway. And
doing stuff for Steve Martin is wonderful, because he has such good taste.
He let me buy beautiful antiques."
Ireland's currently juggling six or seven jobs, in different stages of
completion. There's Oceana Hotel Santa Barbara, a 125 room Spanish style inn
overlooking the water that must be finished by June, an estate in Brentwood
Park, which she's just assembling presentation boards for, a beach house in
Amagansett, Long Island, which will be transformed as soon as the truck
bearing furniture, pillows and curtains that just left Santa Monica reaches
its destination.
The hotel rooms will all be done in fabrics Ireland designed nostalgic
florals, ticking stripes and paisleys printed on voile or a cotton and hemp
blend. She developed the fabric collection three years ago, then moved her
retail operation from Main Street to a larger store on Montana Avenue. That
shop closed recently when Ireland lost her lease. She was not sorry to lose
it, she says, because "dealing with the fabric manufacturing, my design
clients and my kids was too much." Her fabrics are sold at Hollyhock in West
Hollywood and carried by trade showrooms in L.A., San Francisco, New York,
Chicago and London.
* * *
"Now that I'm doing the fabric line, I sell to other decorators and see what
they're doing," she says. She's horrified when too much allegiance is paid
to a single period or style. "There's this whole '40s revival going on, and
there is some great stuff from that era," Ireland says. "But I think you can
very nicely marry lots of different styles and make a home eclectic. I love
a great piece of Stickley furniture. But if you do a whole house in one
look, it turns into a showroom."
Her other pet peeves are rooms that look too "done" and inferior
workmanship. The latter shows up in details such as curtains that aren't
interlined or stenciling that isn't first class. She sees the former in the
pages of Architectural Digest. "I mean, what is that magazine about, really?
It's just that a lot of money's been spent on every room. They've got no
soul to them," she says.
Ireland suggests that if people don't have a lot of money
to spend, they should just get a few things but choose the best they can
afford. "Go for quality," she advises. And some wonderful effects can be
achieved with inexpensive fabric. She's made curtains for her home in
muslin, a basic material that approximates the look of linen or fine cotton.
When Ireland takes on a client, she charges a monthly retainer, with a three
month minimum. A whole house will typically take eight months to a year to
finish. She prides herself on staying within budget, except when a client
demands that things in progress be changed. "Timewise, I'm always spot on,"
she says.
In Ireland's world, anyone doing a six bedroom house should expect to spend
$500,000 to $1 million, not including her fee. Of course, that figure goes
up if buying artworks is included.
She attributes much of her success to her ability to handle people. "I think
I get on with my clients, and we have a good time. I'd heard that Caroline
Kennedy had never done her houses because she couldn't get along with any
decorator. Well, some of that might have just been that some people walk in
and they go, 'Eeww. That's awful.' And they're rude about your stuff. And
they don't get that you have children and dogs. I think it's very arrogant
for a decorator to have a huge ego."
Twelve years ago, Ireland bought an old farmhouse in the village of Monclar
de Quercy in southwest France that she's redone, very simply, using her
fabrics. She escapes there with her family every summer, and for vacations
in winter as well. It is her haven and her hedge against difficult clients.
"The truth is, if I didn't have my office to run here, I could move to my
house in France and live off the land," she says. "My kids could go to the
village school, which they've done, and it would be a lovely life. So I only
want to do this if it's fun."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Los Angeles Times
July 1, 2001 Sunday Home Edition
Real Estate; Part K; Page 1; Real Estate Desk
Acting Couple Take On Real Life Role of Renovators;
Corbin Bernsen and his wife Amanda Pays make time in their lives as actors
and parents to pursue a passion for remodeling unique houses.
RUTH RYON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
When actor Steve Martin bought a Beverly Hills house for $3 million, he
opened the door to a new role for Corbin Bernsen and his wife, Amanda Pays.
Bernsen had been known for his longtime role as divorce attorney Arnie
Becker on the hit TV series "L.A. Law." Pays, from England, had guest
starred on several TV shows.
Both remain active in show biz: He has recurring roles on "The West Wing"
and "JAG"; she has been on "It's Like, You Know," "Martial Law" and "7th
Heaven."
But now the two also have a passion for renovating and selling houses.
It's a mania that started in 1995 when they sold Martin a 10,000 square foot
Country English home they had refurbished and that Pays had partly
furnished.
"That was the beginning," she acknowledged.
Since then, the couple has redesigned and sold a number of their homes,
including a 17th century estate on 40 acres in England, which they spent a
year renovating while living there.
"We enjoy contemporizing old houses," she said.
Among their current projects is their four bedroom, 3,200 square foot home
built in 1949 in Sherman Oaks. It just went into escrow at its full asking
price of $950,000.
Pays also just launched her first spec home project with her husband's
carpenter contractor brother, Collin Bernsen. "We renovated a 1940s, Spanish
style house in North Hollywood that hadn't been touched in years," she said.
"It had bars on the windows, smoke stains on the ceilings and it was covered
with foliage, but I felt it had potential."
Now that the work is done, the two bedroom, 2,000 square foot house will go
on the market July 20 at $649,000.
Pays also has a TV show on home design in development. Called "At Home With
Amanda Pays," the show may motivate people to redesign their homes
themselves.
"It doesn't cost a lot to give a house some style," Pays said, calling
attention to the tiles in one of the bathrooms of her Sherman Oaks home.
"These tiles are white and clean, the cheapest you can get, but it's the
[decorative] way they're applied that makes the difference."
A walk through the house reveals other design ideas she and Bernsen have
used in their renovations.
Over the years, the doorknobs had been replaced. The couple recognized the
quality of doorknobs crafted about the time the house was built and bought
40 of them at a hardware store. "I decided to paint the dining room library
red," she said, "and since we painted, we've had more interesting dinner
conversations." Library red is an English favorite that was popular at the
turn of the 20th century.
In the kitchen, they updated the colors, she said, to muddy grays and
greens. They also installed a stainless steel sink, a slate floor and a cafe
type booth for breakfast and lunch with storage under the seats.
"My husband is a Virgo, so he likes things organized," she said. "I'm a
Gemini, so I go with the flow."
Although they had the refrigerator recessed into the wall, the room was not
re configured.
"The bones were there," she observed.
They turned a maid's room into an office for Bernsen and his collection of
tin toys, and they used part of the garage for a TV playroom.
"When you have four boys, you need a room where you can close the door,"
Pays said. Pays, 41, and Bernsen, 46, have twin boys and two other sons,
ranging in age from 3 to 12.
The house is child proofed, but it does have tile, wood and slate floors.
"If you raise children with hard floors, they learn quickly that they'll
hurt themselves if they fall down. Children of designers must adapt," she
said. They added overhead lights throughout the house for continuity. "With
a redesign, it is especially important to unify the house," she said.
This was also achieved by using the same slate gray tiles on the bath floors
as were used on the kitchen floor. Pays and Bernsen then put greenish gray
deck paint on all of the wooden floors, which originally had been carpeted.
"We mix our own colors," she said.
Covering the floor with paint might be inadvisable if the floor was made of
high quality oak. "But this is regular strip flooring," she said. "It's not
uncommon. So we could find a way to make it look different. Painting it
black would be great too."
They painted the living room cabinets, which Bernsen's brother built, a
light green. He also built a closet off the master bathroom, and French
doors were installed in the bedroom leading to the pool.
Pays and Bernsen added a window in the master bath and had a window frame
made to match the rest of the window frames in the house. It was another way
of unifying the house, she pointed out.
As for the windows themselves, she said, "I don't need fussy coverings."
Pays says she is not attached to things, which is just as well since many
buyers of her homes have wanted some or all of the furnishings.
"Many people want a whole package," she said. "I'm happy to sell my
furniture and move on. And until we find our ultimate house, we'll do that
every few years."
Now that the children are mostly school age, she has her eye on another
house in the same area.
"The house I have in mind has a huge backyard," she said. "That's important
for our boys."
Landscaping is also important to Pays and Bernsen. He is landscaping the
North Hollywood spec home, and they worked together on the landscaping in
Sherman Oaks.
"We took all of the eucalyptus trees down and added other trees and grass to
make a larger garden," she said.
She and Bernsen share a love of architecture, old and new.
Aside from renovations, Bernsen has had a hankering to build 30 to 40
affordable homes using the highest technology.
"Yet, restoring homes is great," he said, "because so many fine, old houses
are being torn down."
Many buyers think it will cost a lot more than it does to update a house,
Pays noted, "and so they knock the old house down. We love finding old,
unique properties."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Addresses in L.A.
STEVE MARTIN: --- 1005 Beverly Glen Blvd., Beverly Hills., and: 721 Bedford
Drive, Beverly Hills.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Record (Bergen,
New Jersey)
February 19, 1995; SUNDAY
ALL EDITIONS
BUSINESS / REAL ESTATE; Pg. R04
A NICE AND CHARMING HOME SUITS THIS WILD AND CRAZY GUY'; STEVE MARTIN
BUYS A $3 MILLION MANOR
RUTH RYON, Los Angeles Times News Service
LOS ANGELES
Steve Martin has purchased a house in the Beverly Hills area for $3 million.
The nearly
10,000-square-foot English manor, on about an acre, has been described as
"cozy and charming."
Martin, one of Hollywood's
most popular stars, started out as a stand-up comic.
He was known in the 1970s
as one of the "wild and crazy guys" on "Saturday Night Live," of which he is
periodically guest host.
He went on to star in
prime-time network specials as well as in films, which he also sometimes
writes and produces.
His latest movie is "Mixed
Nuts," the Nora Ephron-directed black comedy in which Martin plays the head
of a suicide hot line.
In addition to writing the
play "Picasso at the Lapine Agile," Martin is starring in "Father of the
Bride 2," a sequel to his hit film "Father of the Bride."
It's a remake of "Father's
Little Dividend" (1951), which starred Spencer Tracy in the role now played
by Martin. The sequel is slated for November release.
Martin was recently
divorced from British actress Victoria Tennant, to whom he was married for
almost seven years. The two co-starred in "L.A. Story" in 1991.
****
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Buffalo News
January 23, 1994, Sunday, Final Edition
TRAVEL; Pg. 4
BY THE BOOK: NEW YORK'S CELEBRITY ADDRESSES
KEVIN HAYES, New York Daily News
NEW YORK: Anyone who visits Hollywood always winds up taking one of those
"homes of the stars" tours. But you can save the air fare and do the same
thing in New York thanks to "New York City Starwalks" by Larry Horwitz (St.
Martin's Press), a new book that uncovers the Big Apple's Top 10 celebrity
addresses:
The San Remo, 145 146 Central Park West Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Dustin
Hoffman, Diane Keaton, Elaine May, Keir Dullea, Mary Tyler Moore, Barry
Manilow, Mick Jones, Billy Squier, Victoria Tennant and Steve Martin
(ghosts: Rita Hayworth, Jack Dempsey, Harold Arlen).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Back to Top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
