Several years ago, a young couple purchased two ocean-view lots in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades. They quickly drew up design plans with Landry Design Group—the Los Angeles firm headed by well-known architect Richard Landry that has designed homes for Eddie Murphy, Sylvester Stallone, Wayne Gretzky and Sugar Ray Leonard.

But before the couple began construction, they spotted a Spanish-style house

for sale in nearby Brentwood Park. Though the home was only four years old, the layout didn't suit the family's needs. But it was closer to the city, which is a big plus in Los Angeles' traffic-heavy West Side. Promptly, the couple abandoned their building plans for the Pacific Palisades property and purchased the Brentwood Park home. Now their challenge was to transform the structure into a warm and cozy home where they could enjoy their active lives while working and raising their children.

"It had good bones, but [the layout] was just so weird," says Brian Pinkett, the Landry Design associate in charge of the project. While many of the firm's clients know what they want, others give the architect full artistic license. "This couple knew what they wanted," Pinkett continues. "They hired the professionals and then let us do our work."

The labor involved in renovating the home—which included taking down a portion of the two-story house to its studs and creating a new design to open up and brighten the floor plan—would have daunted most working couples with young children. The project paid off, though, since it won a coveted 2007 Gold Nugget "Best in the West" Award of Merit, presented by the PCBC Builders Show, in the category of "Best Renovated or Restored Single House."

Now, instead of entering a gloomy space, guests walking through the heavy wooden arched doorway onto French stone tile floors receive a pleasant little surprise: The light-flooded entry hall ceiling soars. Just ahead, where the living room used to be, lies a spacious dining room that overlooks an outdoor fireplace, a covered loggia with a weatherproofed flat-screen TV, a green lawn, a swimming pool, a spa, and a sports court to the left and out of sight. "It was a fairly new house with major floor plan flaws and a major lack of character," says Landry. "We wanted to bring in warmth, color and high-level elegance at the same time."

Perhaps the most pressing problem was the right wing of the house—a maze of poky rooms that included a gym, an office and a bedroom. The Landry design team converted this area into one vast space that reaches from the front of the house to the back. The stylish and relaxing living room has an antique-look French-style fireplace with a limestone surround, distressed walnut floors, and plenty of room for a Steinway baby grand piano, as well as a step-down bar. "It's a place for entertaining—a grown-up space," says interior designer Luis Ortega, adding that his clients were looking for "a contemporary interpretation of a Mediterranean ambiance."

In the family room/media room, Ortega upholstered an existing banquette in a child-friendly dark chocolate brown chenille, which is accompanied by a bronze-framed Holly Hunt coffee table with limestone shelving. Most of the cabinetry here and throughout the balance of the house is a stained walnut with a satin polish finish. The family room/media room, which includes desks where the children do their homework, opens up to the well-equipped kitchen that includes a Viking cooktop, Sub-Zero refrigerators, and German greenstone countertops. The windows in the second-floor play area above allow the children to peer downward while they talk to their parents in the room below.

From indoor and outdoor lighting to climate control and security, the clients wanted a fully automated house. But as the homeowners are not tech types, they wanted to make sure that the system was user-friendly. Kathleen Rogers of Kathleen Rogers Design, acted as the owners' representative, interpreting their needs to custom installer Josh Christian of DSI Entertainment Systems in West Hollywood, Calif. Rogers also coordinated with the general contractor, artisans, and other trades people who participated in the renovation, and believes that building and renovating can be too overwhelming for busy people with families and careers. "There are so many players involved that someone needs to be managing them. Not telling them what to do, but keeping everyone on board about what everyone else is doing," she says. "The homeowners are very intuitive and decisive. They delegate and don't micromanage. I was like the band leader and they gave me a great orchestra."

Says Christian, who integrated control of the lighting, HVAC, audio, window coverings, security and CCTV: "Kathleen's push was to make the house easy to use, but up-to-date."

The couple was eager to watch television while relaxing in the loggia. Flat-panel TVs designed for outdoor use have recently become available, but the homeowners wanted to use the 42-inch Mitsubishi PD-4230 plasma TV from their previous residence. Christian decided to adapt this older model for outdoor use by mounting it in a deep void within a loggia wall to allow for proper ventilation; he added a hatch on the wall's backside for maintenance purposes. A Plexiglas shield protects the television from climatic wear and tear. "The husband watches a lot of sports there, and friends come and hang out," says the interior designer, who provided the cushioned wicker lounge chairs for the area and a metal table base with a top he custom designed.

Back inside, the master bedroom—complete with a gym and carpeted yoga studio on the third floor that's accessible by a private spiral staircase—is both subtle and soothing with a palette of soft creams and grays, influenced by the wife. "She wanted a quiet and peaceful environment, so these are very much her colors. They're very meditating," says Ortega, who discovered a graceful sofa from the Jiun Ho Collection, which he upholstered in a slate-colored velvet and placed in front of the Crema Marfil marble fireplace. Coverings for the tall windows, which overlook the gardens, are a cream-colored cashmere that allows natural light to filter in. Behind the draperies are motorized blackout shades that retreat when not in use. "They are not 'look at me' kind of people. They are very down-to-earth and modest," says Pinkett of the homeowners, adding that the renovated house is now a comfortable and warm family home.

In the end, the client is pleased. The interior designer is pleased. And so are the architects. Richard Landry expresses his philosophy: "Everyone has a different vision of what their house should be, but a lot of architects are trying to impart their vision on the world. In my mind, it's the opposite. If you really listen to clients, it's surprising what can come out of the relationship."

Tech Talk: The Brentwood Park Home
By Dennis Burger
"With this installation, the clients wanted what I call 'ATM-like simplicity,'" says Josh Christian, vice president of marketing for DSI Entertainment Systems. "By that I mean that if you can operate an ATM, you should be able to run your whole house—that's how intuitive it should be." That's no short order for a control and automation system that governs indoor and outdoor distributed audio, two separate surround-sound systems, a complex security system, the pool and spa, lighting, CCTV, and 17 independent zones of HVAC.

But designing a control system to meet the family's needs meant more than crafting intuitive touchscreen interfaces. In the backyard, for example, Christian devised a simple solution to a problem that plagues many outdoor touchscreen systems. "In the past, when installing touchscreens outdoors, we've put silicone gaskets over them to protect them from the elements. But the real-world problem is that the sun wipes them out. You can't really see them unless you cup your hands around them," he says. "We wanted a more elegant solution, so we built the Crestron CT-1000 [ColorTouch 3.8-inch touchscreen] into a stainless-steel drawer, which provides shade even when opened, and seals when closed to keep out the elements."

Indoors, Christian faced another challenge. "The family room—where their main entertainment system is—has Venetian plaster walls and hardwood floors, which is an acoustical nightmare," he says. "They didn't want to put fabric treatments on the wall. They said, 'If it sounds bad we'll come back and deal with it later.' So I explained that with a regular speaker in that room, we could have a bad floor bounce problem." Christian decided that one of the older-style THX speakers, with a vertically focused sound designed to minimize sonic reflections from the floor and ceiling, would fit the bill. (More recent THX Ultra2 designs have broader vertical dispersion.)

The room's layout also posed potential problems for low-frequency sounds. "The family room opens to the kitchen area; it's not an enclosed room. So we needed multiple subwoofers in a small space just to maintain the bass energy the room required," he says.

Christian found solutions in the form of speakers from the recently defunct M&K Sound. M&K S150 and S150AC loudspeakers provide the controlled dispersion, while a pair of MX-150 subwoofers—each with two internal 12-inch drivers in a push-pull configuration—fill the space with ample bass. "We would have preferred to treat the room acoustically," Christian says. "I hate when people say it's not needed at all, because that's simply never the case. But with THX-certified speakers and processing, the sound worked out extremely well. They're very happy with it, and so are we."