A 15,000-square-foot residence in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, overlooking a country club, presents countless opportunities for over-the-top, garish embellishments. But instead of succumbing to those temptations, this home’s new owner, a fortysomething media entrepreneur, and his design team exercised uncommon and laudable restraint when reconceiving the circa-1926 house. The team comprised interior designer Jerry Meyer, architects Walter Meyer (no relation to Jerry) and A. Thomas Torres, contractor John Finton, and landscape architect Maureen Barnes. The owner purchased the residence three years ago and then gave his charges a one-year deadline to renovate and furnish it. In that time, they created a house that reveals its charms gradually, one room at a time, instead of all at once. “There are a lot of parts to the home that are appealing, but not competing,” explains Walter Meyer. “Each room can stand alone and has its own personality. But at the same time, there’s a tremendous sense of continuity. It’s a true example of the whole being the sum of its parts.”

The 1.5-acre property encompasses a pool filled with salt water, a double garden with water features and sculptures, and numerous entertaining spaces. “The backyard is visible from almost every room in the house, so it was important to create a strong connection between the inside and out,” explains Jerry Meyer.

Inside the home, the design team was cautious to keep the rooms on a human scale. To create a warmer sense of arrival, the height of the home’s original entryway was reduced from 28 feet to 14 feet. The color palette for most of the home’s furnishings—red, fuchsia, and coral—was indirectly determined by the sepia-toned, 19th-century French wallpaper panel hanging in the living room and by the homeowner’s fascination with the romance of red. Beyond the living room and looking out to the garden and swimming pool, the game room and dining room areas offer the homeowner multiple options for entertaining. “He didn’t want a space that was so large that a small dinner party would feel uncomfortable,” says Meyer. “So to the right of the dining room, in the game room, I designed a table with a square insert that normally holds a Man Ray–designed chess set.”

Also convenient for entertaining is the lower-level catering kitchen located just below the home’s family kitchen, which is designed for daily use. Outfitted with stainless steel appliances, including multiple ovens, burners, and refrigerators, the catering kitchen features a dumbwaiter, making it easy to transport food upstairs to the dining room.

Other entertaining areas include the theater, theater lounge, wine room, and billiard room, which are located in their own wing adjacent to the main house. On the home’s top floor are spaces that give the homeowner ample space to relax, including a master suite with a custom-designed bed, a 400-square-foot closet, and an antique-inspired bathroom—one of 17 in the home. 

“The home is a true Italian Renaissance hilltop villa,” says Walter Meyer. “Even though you can see the city in the distance, as soon as you enter through the home’s gates, you feel as though you’ve escaped the chaos and are in your own private retreat.”

–Samantha Brooks