A Sense of Place
September 1, 2008
Like many houses built in the 1920s, this one has smaller windows and was darker inside than today’s new homes. "Back then you didn’t need to bring the outside inside because people were physically outside more," says Corrigan. His challenge was to create a more modern balance between the interior and exterior without adding a hodgepodge of huge windows and ruining the integrity of the original architecture.
To create more interior space, Corrigan tore down the walls of three of the six bedrooms in the staff section—"a rabbit warren of little rooms"—and turned it into one large guest suite. To bring the outside in, he removed heavy drapes over windows and replaced several French doors with larger but proportional glass windows. To give the appearance of more light and add cohesion to the two-story, 12,500-square-foot house, he painted many of the rooms yellow. "As opposed to white," he remarks. "The human eye reads yellow in a room as sunlight."
Then he tackled the gardens, which had sunken into "uninspired California
landscape, with lots of begonias and sword ferns." Corrigan designed geometric
Italian gardens to reflect the architecture, relying on different shades
of green. "I created outdoor rooms," he says, "dividing the spaces with hedges
and shrubs, wax leaf privet, boxwood, and lavender." He ripped out the cement
around the existing backyard swimming pool and let the lawn grow up to the
water’s edge. "It’s a more Italian look," he says, "but it also makes it feel
more like a pond than a swimming pool where you set out lounge chairs and then
put a fence
around it."
Although the house has a formal presence, Corrigan subtly brought his sense of California casual to the furnishings. Many of the fabrics he chose, such as white linen on the living room sofas, are outdoor fabrics. "I use slipcovers; you can scrub them, bleach them, and throw them into the washing machine," he says. "Often I take an antique table and put a urethane finish on top. If a drink spills, you don’t ruin the wood. So to me, that’s California casual, where you’re not tiptoeing around, holding a drink and worrying."
While Corrigan is at home designing every little detail in a kitchen, he’d just as soon never set foot in the room after that. "I don’t cook at all," he says, and neither does Kathleen Scheinfeld, his partner. "If I could take a pill and didn’t have to eat," he remarks, "I’d be just as happy."
Part of the fun of having a spacious estate in Montecito, so close to Los Angeles, is that friends visit almost every weekend. "And fortunately," Corrigan says, "in Montecito, they have great take-out."
Timothy Corrigan, 323.525.1802, www.timothy-corrigan.com
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