European Elegance
Designer BIRGIT KLEIN transforms a home in Santa Ynez
The six-acre Amara Ranch showcases a new chapter in the oeuvre of interior designer Birgit Klein.
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter
Photographs by Madeline Tolle
I love anything that has to do with ranches,” interior designer Birgit Klein says as she surveys the spectacular view from a trio of tall windows in her kitchen. The framed pastoral landscape reveals a lush meadow, an immense wooden barn, and an expansive view of the majestic Santa Ynez Mountains. “I grew up in Munich and spent a lot of time in Austria,” she says. “So I’ve always been drawn to fields and mountains, and for years I’ve wanted to design ranches.” That desire has recently transformed a glorious six-acre property known as Amara Ranch (@Amararanch), showcasing a new chapter in the designer’s oeuvre.
Klein is a well-established international design talent whose elegant spaces reflect her European heritage. Her interiors business originated in London, where she opened her first studio in 2006 after graduating from KLC School of Design. Love and marriage ensued, as did a move to Los Angeles, where Klein opened a second office. “Eventually I started having a lot of work in on the East Coast,” she says. Many of her clients are financial world titans, so Klein shuttled among projects in Los Angeles, New York, and London.
Several years after the move to Los Angeles, while she was pregnant with her second child, Klein and her husband attended a polo match in Montecito. It was a coup de foudre moment, and Klein decided she wanted to leave Los Angeles and raise her children in Santa Barbara. (Luckily her polo-playing husband agreed.) The family relocated in 2015. Their stunning Montecito home—designed by Klein, of course—garnered national and international press. Her charming stone-clad design studio-showroom in San Ysidro Village opened in 2018.
Although Montecito remains Klein’s primary home and business locale, the acquisition of Amara Ranch—the name refers to “something eternal” or “grace” in various languages—has enabled Klein to demonstrate another aspect of her design skills. “I wanted to show you can do a lot of things up here,” she says. “It doesn’t always have to be this very traditional old ranch-style home. It’s much more, a little bit of an edge, but it has atmosphere. It has depth that’s richly layered, which is what I love, but with clean lines.”
“I wanted to show you can do a lot of things up here. It doesn’t always have to be this very traditional old ranch-style home.
It has an edge and an atmosphere.”
In the kitchen-dining area, the fireplace has a polished plaster finish that matches the limewashed walls. Colt Seager’s graphic artwork shares space with accessories and vessels Klein has collected over the years. Chairs from Restoration Hardware surround the vintage metal-topped table.
For Klein, each room needs its own mood: “It has to have a feeling. I want to walk in a room and feel the room.” Texture is key. “It’s very important for me. We use plaster on the fireplaces, and the mirror is antiqued. We have ceramic sconces, we have velvet, things like that,” she says.
Klein designed much of the furniture at the ranch, carefully balancing strong elements, like bold light fixtures, with large-scale artwork by local creatives. The walls are painted with a subdued putty color, as opposed to bright white, and signature pieces have a dark red or even black hue. “They have to be rich colors, so that when I look out in nature, I can see them there too,” Klein says. “Any color that’s inside I can find outside.”
The ranch renovation took a mere 12 months to complete, which is a testament to Klein’s sure-footed approach to the design process. “We didn’t really do any structural changes,” she says. “We left it pretty much the way it was, but we ripped everything out in the kitchen.” She concedes, however, that much remains to be done with the surrounding landscaping, which is hardly surprising when you consider the property’s size. “There’s still a lot of work for the next year or so,” she says with the smile of a passionate gardener.
In addition to the main house, Amara Ranch includes three pastures, a barn, and a guesthouse. “We always wanted to have a ranch,” Klein says. “My husband plays polo; I used to do dressage when I was younger, and our daughter is a hunter-jumper.” Of course, there’s also a separate building on the grounds that will eventually house Klein’s studio. “It’s a passion project,” she says, “but also something for me for work. I can spend more time up here and work from here and hopefully do a lot more ranches.”
In the meantime, Klein has plenty of projects on the boards to keep her busy. “We are working on a beautiful yacht in the South of France right now and on a very large home in the Bahamas, and we’re doing something in Jackson Hole—a ranch,” she says. Not to mention commissions in Montecito and Los Angeles.
Klein attributes part of her design success to her own experience: “I have a young family, and I’m super tidy,” she says. “I have to live in a space that always has to look really beautiful and clean but also has to be child-friendly and pet-friendly. I’m not an interior designer who has a particular style. Every project is a new challenge.” birgitklein.com
