Los Angeles Design Blog | Material Girls | LA Interior Design

Just browsing the website of UK magazine Living Etc in search of some inspirational living rooms (they always feature some great galleries of room designs).

Thought I would share a few finds…

Well, it’s officially summer in LA and this past week has been hot, hot, hot! My 1940’s bungalow in Bel Air has neither AC…nor a pool. Seeing these celebrity pools featured on the Elle Decor website has me a tad envious about now.  Fellow Bel Air neighbor Monique Lhullier has yet to invite me to come over to lounge by her pool (I house sit, FYI). Little does anyone know I’ve been sticking my head in the freezer to cool off!

So here’s where these celebs spend their hot summer days…

Fashion designer Monique Lhullier’s pool, original to her manor-style home located in Bel Air.

The Hampton’s pool of artist Chuck Close and his wife, landscape historian Leslie Rose Close.

The Long Island weekend house of fashion designer Dennis Basso.

The infinity pool at fashion designer Elie Saab’s weekend home near Beirut, Lebanon.

Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer’s East Hampton, New York home.

Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo’s Mediterranean-style setting at her  home in the Hollywood Hills.

The infinity pool at the Malibu home of Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber offers stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.

The Hollywood Hills home of actors Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor has a bi-level pool deck with an exotic vibe.

After creating a book called Pools (Rizzoli), fashion muse Kelly Klein knew a thing or two about how to create one for herself. She designed a black-bottom pool with soapstone coping and sleek steel railings at her Florida home.

At beach retreat belonging Coach president and creative director Reed Krakoff and his wife in Southampton, New York.

Fashion designer Cynthia Rowley’s pool in the backyard of her Manhattan townhouse.

All images from the “Celebrity Pools” feature on the Elle Decor website.

Check out the July 2010 issue of House Beautiful magazine to find out what Kelly Wearstler likes in bed…everything from the type of mattress she prefers to dressing a bed to her line with Sferra Linens.

(Photographed at the Tides Hotel in Miami.)

As many of you may have already seen in the latest issue of ELLE DECOR magazine, the ELLE DECOR editors came out with their first ever A-List of 25 interior designers (including a shortlist of five up-and-coming interior designers).  The goal was to produce “a list of authentic tastemakers whose rooms reflect the passions of ELLE DECOR—high style, serious comfort, snappy ideas—and whose innovative approach to the art of decoration will be studied for generations.”

Last week, ELLE DECOR hosted an event at the McGuire Showroom in NYC honoring the 25 A-List interior designers along with the 5 to watch – and almost all 30 attended!  Imagine thirty of the greats in one room together, including big names such as: Jeffrey Bilhuber, Eric Cohler, Robert Couturier, Steven Gambrel, Suzanne Kasler, Victoria Hagan, Charlotte Moss, Joe Nahem, Alex Papachristidis, Thomas O’Brien, Miles Redd, Stephen Sills, Michael Smith, William Sofield, Steven Volpe, Bunny Williams, and more.

I was not actually at the event, but thought I would pay tribute to some of the local Los Angeles interior designers that were celebrated:

First and foremost, Michael Smith (pictured here with Margaret Russell).  Michael Smith hails from my “hometown” – we both grew up in Bay Shores in Newport Beach and he lived next door to my aunt and went to school with my cousins.  It’s always very exciting to see his name mentioned – especially on an A-List!

Native Angeleno, Oliver M. Furth (included among the five to watch) with Margaret Ruseell and interior designer Katie Lydon (another one of the up and coming listed!).

Los Angeles designer Madeline Stuart (included on the A-List).

Fellow blogger and San Francisco, CA based interior designer Grant K. Gibson (left) was included on the five designers to watch list!
(Pictured here with Alexis Contant (of the Boston Design Center) and designer Matthew Patrick Smyth.)

Congrats to all the A-Listers!

Photography by Patrick Butler courtesy of ELLE DECOR.

For local Angelenos, join Angeleno Magazine at the new showroom of Cusom Comfort Mattress on Beverly Blvd in West Hollywood this Wednesday, June 9th from 7pm-9pm.

RSVP to:  RSVPLA@MODERNLUXURY.COM

The Material Girls were recently featured in the online digital magazine, “Nesting Newbies” as Emily posted about here.  City by city, we featured our favorite “affordable luxe home resources” in the latest issue of Nesting Newbies (starting on page 164).  A few resources didn’t make the feature and are now up on the Nesting Newbies website, you can read about them here!

A few weeks ago I featured a blog post about the Legends of La Cienega window vignettes. Each display featured an amazing range of talent from local designers and decorators who participated in creating vignettes honoring movie sets or tv shows celebrating Hollywood for the Legends of La Cienega design events in Los Angeles.  If you haven’t seen all the window displays (I featured a partial selection in my blog post) you can now visit the Elle Decor website to view all the windows and their descriptions and vote for your favorite window! Check it out here!

To culminate the past few days of the “Legends of La Cienega” design events, the Baker Furniture showroom hosted a cocktail party with Elle Decor along with a book signing by Margaret Russell for her book, “Style and Substance: The Best of Elle Decor.” On Saturday evening, I once again met up with fellow blogger Christian May of Maison21 to attend the last celebration of the two day events.

The entrance to the Baker showroom on La Cienega featured the LCDQ logo and the latest cover of Elle Decor magazine.

The lovely desk where Margaret Russell signed copies of her book, “Style & Substance: The Best of Elle Decor.”

I was so happy to finally meet Margaret Russell.  There have been many other book signings, but up until now I hadn’t been able to attend any of them.  It was great to be introduced to her as the Los Angeles blogger for the Material Girls Blog. She was also delighted to hear that I used to work for Felicia of Bravo’s Season One from Top Design.

So happy to finally have a signed copy!

Margaret Russell with designers Woodson & Rummerfield, who’s vignette inspired by the movie Auntie Mame is on display at the Baker Showroom.

The window display is actually much prettier in person and I happen to see it in evening lighting as the sun was going down.

Loved these zebra print ottomans in the Woodson & Rummerfield window display!

Thanks to Elle Decor & Baker for such a lovely event!

{Photos by Mark Savage Photography and me.}

This past Thursday evening I attended the Elle Decor cocktail party to kick off the start of the two day events for “Legends of La Cienega.”  The gala took place at the Therien showroom on La Cienega where I met up with fellow blogger Christian May of Maison21 to enjoy an evening of wine, hors d’oeuvres, and the guest of honor: Margaret Russell, editor-in-chief of Elle Decor magazine.

The “curbside” entrance to the Elle Decor party.

Concetto by CaesarStone, the event sponsor.

The stunning interiors of the Therien showroom.

The cocktails came to us, quite literally.

The beautiful Margaret Russell with Michael Bruno of 1st Dibs.

Fashion designer Catherine Malandrino.

Designers Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield.

Guests: Ron Woodson, Peter Gursky, Suzanne Marquez, Jaime Rummerfield and Roman.

Guests: Jaime Rummerfield, Thomas Lavin and Suzanne Marquez.

Editor-In-Chief, Elle Decor, Margaret Russell and Catherine Malandrino.

Guests mingling in the Therien showroom.

Courtyard at Therien.

Stay tuned for more highlights to come of the “Legends of La Cienega” design events.

Now I am off for one last cocktail party of the two day extravaganza!

{Photos by Mark Savage Photography}

As an addendum to my last blog post, “Legends of La Cienega 2010” I am including the list of events for  Saturday, May 8th (prevoius post included only the Friday events).

{Please see each invite for more detailed info and if planning to attend any events, rsvp soon as they are filling up fast due to overwhelming response!}

Hollywood Retreats at Hollyhock

Vintage Lineage with Margaret Russell at Lee Stanton

Gender Bending Branding at Jean de Merry

Hollywood Glamour with Angeleno Magazine at Scalamandre

And stay tuned for more blog posts next week about the events – I’ll have some exciting things to share!