Inside a Classic California Canyon Home Filled With Sensational Design
Perhaps it’s the 1960s Jansen Louis XVI–style lyre-back chairs admiring their own comely reflections in the louche-glam 1970s mirrored dining table. Or the rare 1985 Philippe Starck chair—a welcome reminder of the designer’s early, mad genius—poised nonchalantly beneath an unimpeachable Noguchi paper lantern in the primary bedroom. Or maybe it’s the antique Louis XV fauteuil upholstered ever so daintily in the same Sister Parish linen that covers the walls and daybed of the sitting room. Connoisseurs of great design will have a difficult time selecting a favorite vignette among the plethora of sensational moments at the Los Angeles home of AD100 designer Oliver M. Furth and brand strategist Sean Yashar. Within a classic 1950s California canyon house perched in the hills above Hollywood, the inveterate collectors have marshaled an astonishing array of objects and materials in ensembles that highlight shared aesthetic genealogies while forging connections among disparate times, places, and styles. In short, there’s an embarrassment of riches.
“This house represents the same design conversation we’ve been having since our very first apartment together. It’s not a preconceived idea about one particular style or aesthetic. We’re trying to stimulate dialogues between the artists, makers, and objects that we love and champion,” says Yashar, founder of the LA-based consultancy The Culture Creative. “The house incorporates things we came to the relationship with, things we’ve acquired together, and things we commissioned specifically for this project. I’ve been buying furniture since I was 16 years old, like a crazy person,” Furth adds. “But we didn’t want a decorative arts museum. The focus is always on livability—creating rooms where we can live comfortably and graciously with great things.”
Consider the kaleidoscopic living room, a perfect encapsulation of the couple’s penchant for mixing high and low, old and new, rugged and refined. The heady brew encompasses a mica-clad table by Jean-Michel Frank, an 18th-century parcel-gilt fauteuil, a 19th-century Japanese lacquered cocktail table, a midcentury Edward Wormley settee, a pair of post-modern end tables by Peter Shire from 1981, and a 1990 Joel Stearns cardboard chair. Works of contemporary design and art by Adam Silverman, Ryan Belli, Kueng Caputo, Justin Beal, Anne Libby, and Mary Weatherford (whose landmark house Furth renovated; AD, December 2020) bring the decorative salmagundi squarely into the present day.
But it’s not simply a matter of acquiring a trove of far-flung design treasures and tossing them into the same room willy-nilly, a feat anyone with a Pinterest account, a curious imagination, and a healthy bank balance could accomplish. “Oliver is like a conductor. He brings together this ensemble cast of important pieces and up-and-coming talents, and he creates a symphony that feels conceptually cogent and visually dazzling,” Yashar says of his estimable partner, whose first monograph is being published in spring 2024. “And we change things up all the time. It’s a game we’re constantly playing, creating new stories and narrative threads. This is how we have fun,” he insists.
The entry and the kitchen are separated by a new floor-to-ceiling storage unit clad in various shades of green laminate, a nod to the verdant canyon surroundings and the house’s midcentury pedigree. In the kitchen, Furth and Yashar experimented with materiality by juxtaposing the laminate patchwork cabinetry with warm walnut paneling and gray terrazzo-like stone counters. “I wanted to recontextualize laminate. There’s so much history embedded in the material. It feels like a throwback to the 1950s, but it also speaks to 1980s postmodern design,” Furth explains. Between the kitchen and living room, a de facto gallery showcases the couple’s extensive LA-centric ceramics collection on a custom Waka Waka display unit, set beside one of Dan Johnson’s signature Gazelle tables with wood-stump mushroom stools by the legendary decorator Michael Taylor. “It’s a real California moment,” Furth opines.
The dining room is another triumph of design mix-mastery, with the focal mirrored table and Jansen chairs joined by an Ettore Sottsass sideboard, a Campana Brothers rope chair, and a Fabien Cappello papier-mâché planter, all set against glazed cork walls and an antique Persian Serapi rug that nods to Yashar’s Persian heritage. On the lower level, the primary bedroom—a calm, rigorous composition of whites, grays, and black—serves as a striking foil to the unapologetically pretty sitting room wrapped in a paprika-hued Sister Parish fabric. “It’s my way of subverting traditional decorating, taking the idea of a toile room and reimagining it in a fresh, California way,” Furth says of the lounge’s fanciful finery.
In the end, what’s most compelling about Casa Furth/Yashar is not the stunning pageant of objets de vertu but the finesse with which the objects have been deployed and the strange, unregarded affinities that give life to the rooms that harbor them. “We weren’t trying to disrupt anything or burn the house down,” Yashar asserts. “We worked with the architecture we had, and we challenged our favorite artists and designers to push themselves and their work. We kept saying, ‘We want it bigger, bolder, more complex.’ Clearly, they delivered.”
This classic California canyon home appears in AD’s October 2023 issue. Never miss an issue when you subscribe to AD.
Art: Anne Libby/Night Gallery. © Mary Weatherford/Gagosian. Justin Beal. Studio Furthermore.1/14The merry mélange in the living room includes a custom sofa covered in a Rosemary Hallgarten wool, a pair of Joel Otterson chairs, a 19th-century Japanese lacquered table with Adam Silverman sculptures, a Sergio Mazza pendant light, a Joel Stearns cardboard chair next to a Kueng Caputo marble stool, and a Ryan Belli illuminated wall sculpture. Artworks above fireplace by Justin Beal and Mary Weatherford (front).
Art: David Wiseman/Wiseman Studio.2/14Oliver M. Furth (left, wearing Faye Toogood), Sean Yashar, and Murphy the red poodle. Table by Ger C. Bout, bronze coat hooks by David Wiseman, and Louis XV chair.
Art: © Wade Guyton/Matthew Marks Gallery. Alex Hagentorn/Jeff Lincoln Art + Design Southampton, New York.3/14Stools by Michael Taylor, Katie Stout, and Tanya Aguiñiga surround a Dan Johnson table in the ceramics gallery, which features works by Beatrice Wood, Andrea Zittel, Alex Reed, and others, all arranged on a custom display unit by Waka Waka. Vintage Ettore Sottsass floor lamp and Kwangho Lee hanging light sculpture. Limited-edition poster by Wade Guyton.
4/14The dining room is outfitted with a 1970s mirrored table, Jansen Louis XVI–style chairs, an Ettore Sottsass sideboard, a Campana Brothers chair, an Angelo Lelli chandelier, glazed-cork wall covering, a Fabien Cappello planter through AGO Projects, and custom patchwork curtains by Christopher Wrobleski Studio.
Art: James Lee Byars © the estate of the artist/Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London.5/14Wrapped in walnut paneling, the kitchen has a Karl Seemuller stool, an antique American hooked rug, a Miele cooktop, and Dornbracht fixtures. Artworks by James Lee Byars (counter) and Clare Graham (window).
6/14Furth converted the nondescript entry court into a pocket garden with a vintage concrete table and Reinaldo Sanguino stools from The Future Perfect.
7/14Antique geometric artist models sit on a James De Wulf concrete table with Dan Johnson chairs on the dining terrace.
Art: S. Lee Robinson. © Sam Falls. Leena Similu.8/14A Sister Parish linen covers the walls, the daybed, and an 18th-century fauteuil in the sitting room. Sean Gerstley cocktail table, Fontanaarte pendant light, and Leena Similu sculpture.
9/14Furth’s folding walnut-and-leather tub cover provides a perch for secret confabs and party gossip. Katie Stout hanging lamp, 1920s Lajos Kozma stool, Vola fixtures, and Natasha Baradaran textiles sheer curtain.
10/14A guest bath has a 1940s sink, toilet, and tub set against walnut paneling. Gilded clay and resin sconce by Maryam Turkey.
Art: Louise Bourgeois. © 2023 The Easton Foundation / licensed by Vaga at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.11/14In the primary bedroom, vintage Milo Baughman chests with Misha Kahn lamps from Friedman Benda flank a Mongiardo Studio parchment bed beneath an Isamu Noguchi lantern. Philippe Starck chair, Ron Rezek floor lamps, and Frette linens. Drawings by Louise Bourgeois.
12/14An architectural room divider and storage unit covered in a patchwork of laminates divides the kitchen from the entry. A Jean-Michel Frank lamp rests beside an Andrea Zittel bowl. Miele cooktop and Dornbracht pot filler.
13/14A Martino Gamper stool sits at the bottom of a stairwell with a hand-painted mural by Liesel Plambeck.
14/14A powder room is sheathed in a wall of verre églomisé and silver-leafed raffia wall covering. A Jane Hallworth sconce covered in bronze moths is installed above a 17th-century Dutch mirror, both from Blackman Cruz. The shelf is by Jacques Jarrige, and the drawing is by Al Held.
