Be Like the Bungalow
An Artist Finds Inspiration in a Riviera Roost
Written by Olivia Joffrey
Photography by Matt Albiani
My family and I moved from Montecito into our Riviera bungalow during the pandemic. The realtor suggested that the house, built around 1915, was too small for us, but the minute I saw it, I knew it was our ideal nest. The brilliance of a bungalow is that it’s built with a compact, ship-like economy of space. There is really just one living area (which includes the kitchen), plus bedrooms that radiate off the center.
The former owners were Francophile chefs, and it shows. The main living room has de Gournay wallpaper, and in the kitchen there’s a La Cornue stove. Both initially made the place feel a bit grand for my routine of sleepovers and messy art projects, but now that we’ve woven our life into the space, they have become treasured aspects of our home. I approach the decoration of my bungalow as autobiography—filled with my children’s artwork, framed drawings my father made for me, contemporary sculptures created by artist friends, a chair upholstered in my family’s Scottish tartan. Most of the visual noise in my rooms comes from my book collection and the art; the rest is rendered in white linen and rattan. Too much pattern can feel overstimulating for my eye. And in a house where the windows, greenery, and light are the main event, there’s no need to call attention to much else.
The former owners did a brilliant job in making windows the central feature of the living space. The remaining wall space is papered in a de Gournay garden scene. I like to hang a child’s artwork in fancy custom frames. Children are innate artists.
I am a Northern Californian by birth, and the inside of the house reminds me of both a San Francisco apartment (raised off the street, crown moldings) and a certain kind of breezy beach house that’s part of the vernacular of my hometown, Santa Cruz. I like a house that’s informal, sensual, and efficient, yet luxurious in its relationship with the climate—one where doors are open, feet are bare, and the scent of orange blossom floats in from outdoors. The house itself feels a little like a treehouse, full of light, as it sits nested into the Riviera.
This kitchen is my first with a glamorous chef’s stove, and it has dramatically upgraded my cooking life. It sits just feet away from the dining table and looms large in our routine, as if it were another family member. We are always cooking something on or in it—trying to copy a Revolver pizza, grilling Helena Avenue Bakery bread in a cast-iron pan, or poaching salmon to take to the park for a picnic.
The lack of a dining room has brought a whole new level of intimacy to our family life. My kids do their homework right there while I cook. Conversations erupt naturally, as they do when you are near your loved ones, and music wafts easily from room to room. A dine-in kitchen is also a very compact, efficient way to entertain. I’ve squeezed 16 people around my kitchen table for dinner and never missed the conversation. That is the raucous spirit of imperfection I want to embody when I’m having friends over.
When I moved to the Riviera, I was reading the autobiography of legendary Vogue creative director André Leon Talley. The book influenced how I wanted my house to feel. Talley includes a passage about his humble upbringing in North Carolina and the effect his dignified grandmother, who worked as a maid, had on his career in fashion. He recounts her ritual of washing the white bed linens every weekend and pressing them to a point of crispness. Her pride in taking care of her abode—of making the most of something modest and savoring the experience of sliding into a tidy bed—left an imprint on him. I saw it as a metaphor for how to live luxuriously and simply.
My house has taught me to embrace Grandma Talley’s lens of care and restraint. It has changed how my family lives: There is no storage to speak of, so I’ve slowly edited our possessions to just our favorite books, art, clothes. On occasion we do feel a bit on top of one another, but we have learned to hunt down a corner when we need quiet, to wander out to the hammock or take a call on the back deck. It’s easier to take care of a compact house. For me, with a busy family on top of my creative agency, that means more time for drawing, writing, cooking, and savoring this California dream town.
