BoR: Tracie Butler Interior Design

When client and interior designer are on the same wavelength, everyone wins. This couple, creatives with a young child, had been longtime admirers of Tracie Butler’s work, not to mention close family friends. Their 1930s Spanish-style house had “plenty of old Beverly Hills glamour and a ton of character and light,” Butler says. “So it was an easy space to design, in a sense.” What the house needed was a little verve.

Butler focused on creating flow between the rooms, then added in contemporary and Hollywood Regency accents, from custom croc-embossed leather ottomans and rich velvet throw pillows to a hand-carved master bed. A standout in the living room is the vintage starburst chandelier. It draws welcome attention to original oral stencils on the ceiling rafters that were luckily still in spectacular shape. Another key element is the home bar tucked into a nook off the living room. To make a dedicated place for it, Butler closed up an under-used doorway to the formal dining room, turning it into a niche for shelves of stemware.

So what do the clients think of the renovation? “They love that it is still true to the home’s original style,” Butler notes, “yet feels fresh and modern in fabrics, nishes, and details.” Cheers to that.