Custom millwork and Ceppo marble run throughout, while DEN barstools surround the island.
In Upper Nichols Canyon, a meticulously preserved 1960s residence proves that the best mid-century homes are never really finished; they’re just waiting for the right hands.
Upper Nichols Canyon sits minutes from the Los Angeles basin, but feels like another world entirely; mature trees closing over the road, the city audible but not quite visible, the homes set back behind layers of tropical planting. It’s the kind of enclave that offers something rare in Los Angeles: a country-like remove without the actual distance.
The Colony, a pocket nestled within the canyon, has long drawn people to its niche concentration of mid-century homes. Ones that are preserved well enough to still make the case for the period’s convictions about light, open space and the relationship between a home and its land. This 1960s home, originally designed by Smith & Williams—one of Southern California’s most considered architectural practices of the mid-century modern era—is proof of it.
What Smith & Williams built was an argument in geometry, with angular forms and sculptural rooflines shifting the angle of light throughout the day. When Los Angeles interior design and development studio Ome Dezin walked through the door, the goal was to uncover what the home had always been capable of holding.
The answer, it turns out, was quite a lot. Ome Dezin added an oversized pivot door, a spiral staircase with a red underside—the interiors’ one moment of overt colour—and a custom kitchen built around an expansive marble island, each addition in conversation with the architecture’s original language. Moments like the double-height foyer, the height of the ceilings and the sawtooth ceiling’s geometry asked to be preserved, not reinterpreted.
A Louis Poulsen PH Kontrast pendant lamp by Poul Henningsen sourced through Amsterdam Modern, with NOGA Orchestra chairs underneath.
An Amsterdam Modern sofa and floor lamp sit alongside a NOGA Amoeba coffee table and nesting side tables, both by Paul T. Frankl. A Dusty Deco Bellver rug runs underfoot, with a Serge Attukwei Clottey artwork from on the wall.
A Källemo Aluminum armchair by Mats Theselius in cowhide and a NOGA Amoeba coffee table by Paul T. Frankl anchor the custom built-in sofa, finished in stained white oak millwork. A vintage table lamp and Lumen floor lamp complete the space.
The material palette follows the same logic: rich woods, plaster and stone selected for proportion as much as appearance, while furniture from Källemo and Made by Choice sit low and structured against the architecture. European references surface here and there—Villa Necchi in Milan an acknowledged touchstone—such as in the colour combinations and the deliberate restraint of each space.
Personality enters carefully: in a shared bathroom tiled in sunny yellow with copper accents and glass bricks; a library fitted with built-in vintage speakers; a primary suite with a full-length balcony looking out over the pool, garden and distant mountains. Outside, the grounds are arranged across two levels—pool, spa and outdoor dining on the lower tier, a shaded terrace, Zen garden and sauna above it.
There is something to be said for a home that has outlasted every trend that came after it. This one seems entirely unbothered by the fact.
A vintage bed frame dressed in a Cultiver bedcover sits on a Dusty Deco Shaggy Labyrinth rug. A vintage Ron Rezek table lamp and velvet stools from Amsterdam Modern sit below a Creative Art Partners artwork.
Pictured: Dusty Deco Geraldine floor lamp.
Sunny yellow Zia Tile covers the walls and floor, paired with an Onice Soltano onyx counter and vintage yellow sconces. Pictured: Cassina 524 Tabouret Méribel stool designed by Charlotte Perriand.
A replastered pool and in-ground spa sit on the lower tier of the grounds, where the home’s angular rooflines read in full elevation against the hillside planting.
Mature trees and tropical planting frame the upper tier, with a shaded terrace, Zen garden and sauna creating a more secluded outdoor setting. Pictured: Swisspearl Willy Guhl Loop chair.
