Homes & Estates Digest Homes & Estates Digest 2015 | Edition 2 | Page 5

“THE HOME’S
ECLECTIC YET
HARMONIOUS BLEND
OF FURNISHINGS,
FABRICS AND RICH
ARCHITECTURAL
DETAIL REVEALS A
ENORMOUS SENSE
OF DEPTH.”

W

hen interior designer Lauren King first saw the stately
Georgian-style manse in Holmby Hills perched above Sunset Boulevard, she immediately
had a vision for what it could be. The 1938-built residence possessed an enchanting
celebrity pedigree to start—the original “Funny Girl,” Fanny Brice, had once lived there,
as did music mogul Jerry Moss and Oscar-winning producer Alan Ladd Jr. in later years.
King also fell in love with the estate’s rhythmic cadence of classicism, which she saw
as a promise of “casual formality.” In an emotional moment, her husband, Richard, a
respected television syndicator, purchased the nearly two-acre estate on his birthday.
“The property was remarkable,” she reveals to me during one of my recent visits to Los
Angeles. “The other lovely thing about it was that it had few prior owners. It seemed that
a lot of happy families lived here.”
Like any historic property, however, it required both labor and love. In 2001, the Kings
commissioned Manhattan-based AD100 firm Ferguson & Shamamian Architects to
refashion the home with contemporary enhancements. What they thought was going
to be a straightforward renovation turned into a landmark rebuild spanning five years.
Among the classically minded architects, mechanical engineers, contractor Peter
McCoy, landscape architect Nancy Goslee Power and King’s restrained approach to
interior design, they managed to thoughtfully transform the residence into an example of
“the new traditional.” The home’s eclectic yet harmo