Measured Warmth: Designer Beatrice Faverjon’s All-Wood Retreat in Topanga Canyon
California-based French designer Beatrice Faverjon was driving through Topanga Canyon on her way to fire her ceramics (she is both a ceramicist and interior designer) when she spotted a house for sale. “It really looked in despair with the whole house clad in a fake, pinkish wood,” she recalls. “But the massing was incredible—it reminded me of the 1960s houses of Sea Ranch.” Drawn to its potential, she purchased the property with the goal of giving it a new life, envisioning it as both a vacation retreat and a production location. A former director, Beatrice orchestrated the full renovation, preserving the exterior walls while remodeling nearly everything inside.
“The ceilings were extremely high, with oddly shaped windows throughout. It felt cold and unwelcoming,” she explains. The solution was bold—lowering the kitchen ceiling to create the feeling of a real room, cladding the exterior in Kayu wood, and finishing the interiors with knot-free Radiata (or Monterey) pine. The result is a warm, organic modernist house spanning 2,900 square feet, with three bedrooms and an artful balance of raw and refined. Here’s a look inside.
Photography by Yoshihiro Makino except where noted; all photographs courtesy of Beatrice Faverjon.
Above: “The massing of the house reminded me of the angular lines and geometry found in the Sea Ranch homes of Northern California,” notes Beatrice who selected paint colors from the Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater color palette from PPG Paints. The garage door is painted Monkey Madness and the front door is painted Red Gumball.
Above: Says Beatrice: “It was important to me to use a knot-free pine so the house would not look like a chalet but more like a modernist interior.” The wood, a Radiata pine, is finished with a transparent oil. The flooring throughout the house is newly installed oak plank floors.
Above: The living room is defined by a collection of Beatrice’s vintage finds: a leather Ligne Roset Togo Sofa, a Don Shoemaker Sling Chair designed for Señal in the 1960s, and two 1953 Visingsö Stools by Carl Malmsten for Svensk Fur.
Above: Above is a Noguchi Akari 120A Lamp fitting for the expansive ceiling area. On the floor is a Moroccan rug that Beatrice sourced from Larusi in London.
Above: The kitchen now features a lowered ceiling to set the room apart from other living areas and bring more intimacy into the kitchen/dining space. The lighting throughout the kitchen is supplied simply with Commune Light Sockets and clear bulbs.
Above: The dining table is designed by Beatrice and was built on site using the same birch as the kitchen cabinets. The dining chairs are vintage Pierre Gautier-Delaye chairs that Beatrice sourced from France.
Above: The kitchen countertop is oak while the cabinets are, as mentioned above, birch. The kitchen faucet is the Vola KV1-16, the sink is the Holt Stainless Steel Sink from Rejuvenation, and both the cooktop and wall oven are Bertazzoni. Photograph by Beatrice Faverjon.
Above: A view into the living room reveals a wood-burning stove (sourced from HearthStone) and a vintage folding screen.
Above: The bed frames are all designed by Beatrice who had them made by her carpenter.
Above: “I designed the bathrooms as a counterpart to the predominantly wood interior,” explains Beatrice who drew inspiration from the Dutch brand DTILE, “but instead of using curved tiles, I wanted to make more rectangular shapes like the rest of the house.” She bought simple white 4-by-4-inch tiles and finished both the bath and sink/counter in them. The toilet is the Duravit Starck 3.
Above: A bedroom kitted with various textiles spanning Japan (the coverlet) and Morocco (the rug). Photograph by Austin John.
Above: A view from the newly-installed windows onto the deck. Photograph by Beatrice Faverjon.
Above: The tiles are from Beatrice’s own collection of terracotta tiles from the 1970s and she had the deck chairs built, inspired by the African two-board folding chair (also known as “X chairs”). Photograph by Beatrice Faverjon.
Above: A vintage German biergarten table on the deck and a nearly invisible door that leads back into the house. Photograph by Beatrice Faverjon.
Above: The hot tub is a Cedar Hot Tub from Northern Lights. (For more outdoor hot tubs see our post 10 Easy Pieces: Wood-Burning Hot Tubs on Gardenista.) Photograph by Beatrice Faverjon.
Above: Tucked into the hills of Topanga Canyon, the house feels remote but is “5 minutes from Topanga town,” explains Beatrice. Photograph courtesy of Beatrice Faverjon.
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