For this family, a home is a place to have fun. But what is fun without some colour thrown in? And crazy ones at that. Check out their unique sanctuary
Outside: classic architecture. Inside: anarchy.
It’s not what you would expect from an attorney couple. But open the front door of this 1940 Spanish Revival house in a historic preservation zone and stand back.
The entry walls have been painted egg-yolk yellow.
The living room has fuchsia and lime-green silk sheers and hanging from the green ceiling is a banana-coloured pleated light fixture that looks like a mushroom cap.
The dining-room walls are sunset orange, the chandelier shaped like a five-headed, multicoloured sea creature.
Underneath the light, spinning around on the Lazy Susan on the dining-room table, is 2-year-old Miles Kottler. And everyone’s laughing.
It’s a party inside
Pity those poor people on the sidewalk who have no clue about the party here inside.
Sure, the façade of this house was originally designed to fit in with neighbouring properties largely built by the same developer.
But half a century later, it was purchased by Doug Kottler, who is crazy about colour, and his wife, Mary, who gave up her khaki-loving ways for a spin in this kaleidoscope.
Although painting interiors in a neutral palette is in vogue and this South Carthay neighbourhood in Los Angeles practically bleeds beige, behind closed doors, the Kottlers have unleashed the colour wheel with seemingly wild abandon.
When family friend Elda Ellis saw the house after the remodel, her pithy first assessment was “eclectic”.
Never neutral
“When you walk into most people’s homes, there are tasteful neutral colours — nothing offensive but also nothing that’s interesting.
Here, guests are blown away by so much colour,” says Doug, sporting a pink floral dress shirt and snazzy loafers, sans socks.
He just hopes people see the colour serves a purpose and it’s “not like a paint store blew up”.
The perfect choice
Eleven years ago, the Kottlers discovered this house, a 3,000 square foot one-storey with a tidy lawn and stone path to the front door.
The real estate agent immediately warned them of an oddity in the back, something the original owner planned to remove if requested.
The Kottlers waded through the front rooms, decorated “grandma style”, Doug says, trying to be diplomatic.
They squeezed through what Doug called a ridiculously small and depressing kitchen.
Then they peeked at the three bedrooms, which had 60 years of wallpaper on the walls, Doug says.
The layers were like a timeline: nursery prints, teenage floral, stripes for a father’s study.
The cramped master bath had a pink vanity and tiles that “looked like varicose veins”, Doug says. “I like colour but this was blotchy.”
Then they got to the bad part. Apologetically, the agent led them to what was once the backdoor of the house.
Instead of a backyard, there was a 20 foot square room that the original owner had added.
“He designed it too, even though he had no building background,” Doug says. “I think he was a handbag salesman.”
Patchwork of hues
On one wall was a brick oven the size of a single garage door. On another a half-moon bar with a glass-block base and a turquoise counter.
On the floor was terrazzo with intersecting green and red rings and squares.
The ceiling had bluish-green glass panels wrapped in chicken wire that could be rolled back to open the room to the sky.
The agent grimaced. The Kottlers turned to each other and knew right then: This was their house.
“We loved that there was no way of predicting that this room existed,” Doug says. “It would have been criminal to destroy it, like smashing a stained-glass window.”
The odd room became inspiration to give the rest of the white-walled house some personality to match.
But the Kottlers would have to do it without changing the exterior, as directed by the South Carthay preservation guidelines.
Two years ago, they embarked on a makeover of the whole house.
“Everything needs to be interesting,” Doug says, standing in his new kitchen with Durapalm coconut-palm wood cabinets, cork floors and lime-green glass tiles.
Comfort was good but colour was key.
Doug made that clear during the couple’s first conversation with Beverly Hills-based interior designer Malgosia Migdal.
Doug took Migdal by the hand and led her to his closet — a rainbow of shirts, suits and shoes.
Talk fave, talk orange
“Orange has been my favourite colour for years,” Doug says. “It’s rich and interesting and there are so many different shades.”
In the dining room, the walls above the wainscoting are painted Ralph Lauren Villa Torlonia.
The chandelier by Aqua Creations has tangerine strips. Covering some of the original hardwood floors is a fawn-and-orange rug called Russian Box by Emma Gardner Design.
Happy place
“I was slower to come to the table on some colours, especially when they were going to be used in large areas,” Mary says.
“Green tile for the whole kitchen? Really? But then I gave in. I had just had our second son and I think they took advantage of that post-delivery delirium.
"But now I love it. I feel great when I come back home. It really is a happy place to be in.”
Ellis says her friends’ house, once a series of confined rooms packed together, feels more spacious because of the colours, the glass tile and the integration of traditional elements with the modern.
The result is a fun, cosy sanctuary, she says.
“There are a lot of colours in the house but they make a lot of sense,” Doug says.
“You see shirts with one sleeve red and another yellow but there is no rhyme or reason to the combination.
To me, all that doesn’t make sense. But Malgosia came up with a sophisticated palette.”
“So it doesn’t look like something exploded in here,” Mary says.
