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hat I liked most about the house when I first saw it," says
its owner, actor Matthew Perry, "was the open floor plan,
the high ceilings and the views of Santa Monica Bay. Some
mornings I can see the ocean; other times I'm above and
below the clouds, isolated and cushioned from the world."
The house in question, high in the Hills of Beverly, was
designed in 1-.974 by Amir Farr (who had built a highprofile home for Dyan Cannon and Cary Grant). "I guess I
just have a thing for U-shaped houses," jokes the actorknovrn for his fflms as well as his portrayal of Chandler
Bing on the long-running Friends-"because this is like the
great-grandfather of my previous modern ranch-style house."
When Perry bought it from a professional couple who
had raised a family here, the stone, steel and glass house
ambled over 7,000 square feet, covering most of the lot.
Though somewhat neglected, it had a terrific presence and
great sbucture. The living/dining room with soaring ceilings and a mezzanine, which together form the bottom of
the U, still fronts the hilltop cul-de-sac. One wing still
holds a large kitchen that opens into a comfortable family
room that opens, in turn, onto an outdoor dining room
with state-of-the-art grills.
But the private wing of the original was not as freeflowing as the public areas: Tiny rooms butted up against
each other in a jumble that didn't suit the rest of the house,
which recalls the kind of place the Rat Pack would have
rented for a Las Vegas weekend-in a movie. Which suits
the highly social Perry perfectly; the native Canadian (and
tennis ace) loves to entertain.
PRODUCED BY LINDA O'KEEFFE AND LAURA HULL. PHOTOGRAPHS BY
JEREMY SAMUELSON. WRITTEN BY MICHAEL LASSELL.
.:: FT H}tE
NOV/DEC 2OO1
6.-
The dining area (left, top) seats
12 in Mies van der Rohe chairs. The
kitchen (|eft, below) is up the steps,
next to the family room. The mezzanine
is a personal arcade, with pool table
and Foosball, as well as a descending
screen for video games. The entrylYay
(far left, bottom) was enlatged, enclosed
and treated to a placid water feature.
Friends of a "Friend" (below): designer
Tim Clarke (left) and architect
Scott Joyce in the tropical atrium.
Vff
hat the unique house lacked when it went into show busi-
ness was
a master suite worthy of the new master.
"Matthew wanted a large, expansive, transparent box," says
foyce, "and there was no way to make that happen with the
existing structure." Perry and loyce decided to lop off the
offending limb and replace it with a 30-by-30-foot bed-
room.
A
series
of models followed before the final
configuration: Walls of custom-made glass (mitered at the
corners to maximize the indoor/outdoor
illusion-"In architectural terms, it's a
commercial application," instructs
foyce) hang from a cantilevered roof
anchored to pillars hidden in a stone
fireplace. The firebox has a vapor-glass
back wall that goes from transparent to
opaque with the flip of a switch. The
bedroom is served by a bathroom and
dressing room proportioned by Scott as
meticulously as nesting Chinese boxes.
But like every renovation project, the
house began making demands of its
own. "When people see how great the
new part of their house looks," says Joyce, "they start to
notice that the rest of the house needs help." "The house
had a hard quality, all angles and sharpness," says Perry.
"It had taupe-y beige paneling where the dining room table
is now," reports Joyce, "and the floor was yellow tile. It
looked like the bathroom at the TWA terminal."
foyce and Perry, now joined in their adventure by interior designer Tim Clarke, went to work softening and
warming. They repaired the redwood ceilings and aug-
mented the original stone walls where necessary with
new slabs from the same quarry (a faux finisher matched
the color of the grout). They replaced the floor tile with
walnut throughout ("Matt had always liked the idea of a
wood floor," says foyce), then stained it blacker. The paneling came down and was replaced with Italian galice
plastering. "It's about seven layers of very thin plaster,"
reports Clarke, "each with its own different tint, and each
sanded and waxed in succession. It's
how frescoes are done. Matthew kept
saying, 'Can't we just paint the walls?'
But he's happy now that we didn't."
For furnishings, Clarke
designed
large, comfortable pieces and mixed
them with contemporary and midcentury accents. "We only had nine
months to do this whole project,"
says Clarke, "and Matthew was very
involved in all the decisions. I'd bring
in a huge stack of fabrics to the set
and he'd touch every swatch, then
invariably pick the darkest and softest
one." Consequently, the house is plush with luxurious
wool (the floor-to-ceiling curtains are made of Italian
suiting material from the same mills that produce
Armani's yard goods) as well as chenille, velour, suede,
flannel and cashmere.
The kitchen was lightly refurbished with new cabinet
finishes and appliances. "But Matthew never cooks," says
Clarke, "so he didn't want to spend a lot of money on a
room he would never spend any time in."
METHOME NOV;DEC
2l-- ,-:
he intrepid trio then decided to turn the small basement
into a deep-piled, royal-blue screening room, and adjacent
subterranean storage into a "meditation room" in pashainspired shades of red and more pillows than the average
boarding school. The bedroom wing, meanwhile, got an
office, a big gym and a white-on-white guest suite.
They enclosed the entry in glass and floored it in slate;
then they added a reflecting pool that starts outside and
enters the house with guests, who step on slabs of slate
surrounded by water, all of which suggests a fapanese
garden in modern Tokyo. And while they were at it,
shouldn't that space next to the guest room and office be
turned into a tropical greenhouse with a retractable glass
roof and sensors that open the roof panels when it gets too
hot and close them when it rains? And shouldn't it have a
Jacrtzzi? And shouldn't the whole house be wired so that
Perry can control all its complex electronics, from the
mood music to the pool lighting, from touch pads in the
walls? And shouldn't the coffee tables hold pop-up video
game storage? Of course they should!
But when all is said and done, it's the palatial, serene
master suite-with a pool on one side and, on the other,
a spa-like bathroom and a surprisingly neat dressing
room stocked with unsurprisingly modest, Chandler-like
clothes-that pleases the award-winning actor most. "I
Ioved working with Scott and Tim," says Perry, "because
they knew when to ignore me. The bedroom is the most
successful room in the house," he adds, "although that has
nothing to do with the architect.and designer. Kidding! I
could be very happy living entirely in this space." mh
See Resources, last pages.
124
MET HOME NOV/DEC 2OO1