House of Mirth
Traditional taste with a twist of wit
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter
Photographs by Sara Prince
Great interior design is like great food: Both require talent, exceptional ingredients, and a touch of je ne sais quoi or umami. For this Montecito home, two women provided the umami: the client, Georgia-born polymath Ashley Underwood, and the acclaimed Hollywood-pedigreed designer Madeline Stuart. Both are whip smart and sharp-witted (emphasis on wit).
The pair teamed up in 2022, when Ashley was in the midst of producing and directing her documentary, Dreambreaker: A Pickleball Story, in tandem with her house renovation. According to Ashley, “I had never done a house before, and I was just getting recommendations here and there. I really needed help. Madeline walked in looking like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, and I felt like Anne Hathaway. We had the spark.” Madeline concurs, adding “everything we did was absolutely collaborative. It’s really Ashley who had the vision for this, who knew what she wanted in terms of feeling—a level of ease, a traditional spirit—and it was up to me to find things that could harmonize with her vision.” Now, after spending two years on the house project, their conversations resemble the comedic banter of sisters:
Ashley: I grew up with real hardwood floors. So I was so particular about the floors.
Madeline: Very.
Ashley: To the point I drove everybody nuts.
Madeline: To the point of nausea.
The floors in question are hand-painted and run throughout the ranch-style home. Before Madeline, the walls of Ashley’s living room were covered in MDF, a cheap wood-fiber paneling quickly replaced with what Madeline dubs the “Bringing Up Baby paneling,” after the 1938 screwball comedy starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. This deceptively simple solid wood paneling required custom milling “because it needed to be right,” Madeline says. “And when you walk in, you feel it.”
The reference to old Hollywood design is no accident; Madeline’s father, Mel Stuart, was a film director and producer. (As a child, Madeline convinced him to make her favorite book into the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.) Ashley had fallen in love with this house because of its fireplaces. (There are five.) Her childhood home, built from architectural plans sold by Southern Living magazine, had included multiple fireplaces. “My dad was like, ‘It’s 80 degrees and humid here. Why do we need a fireplace in every room?’ But my mom said, ‘We have to have a fireplace in every room.’ ” And so they did. Fortunately, Madeline was on hand to redesign Ashley’s fireplaces, down to the antique fire screens and fireplace tools. In fact, the residence reflects Ashley’s Southern roots, despite the fact most of her life has been lived elsewhere.
“This room is like a hug.”
Growing up in Albany, a small town in Georgia, Ashley cheerfully admits, “My childhood dream job was to be a Waffle House waitress.” But her parents had other ideas, and they sent their teenage daughter to boarding school in Maryland. For college, she studied literature at the American University of Paris. After graduation, Ashley moved to Los Angeles, hoping to break into the entertainment industry. She held a series of odd jobs, often working three at once. Suddenly, she was homesick. “I wanted to know my family,” she says. “I wanted to know my Southern roots.” She returned to Georgia and applied to law school. “Everybody in my family is a lawyer,” Ashley says. “I used to joke that you have to have a law degree to sit at the dinner table.” She attended John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, her father’s alma mater.
But law school, a judicial clerkship, and an internship at the Carter Center couldn’t quash Ashley’s innate talent for comedy, and after writing humorous essays for the HuffPost, Ashley returned to Los Angeles. She landed a job with actor-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who was married to Isla Fisher, with whom Ashley had lived in Paris. (The couple also introduced Ashley to her husband, a comedian.) Following her stint with Cohen working in television and film, Ashley became a producer with Dreambreaker, a documentary about two billionaires who form competing professional pickleball leagues. Ashley also has several potential projects in play, including one involving the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that helps individuals affected by the criminal legal system.
In the meantime, Ashley and her husband are enjoying their comfy Hedgerow home along with their two Australian shepherds, Bernie and Rosie. The private wing of the house boasts several bedrooms, including Ashley’s favorite, which is decked out with colorful fabrics by British designer Robert Kime. “I really wanted that English look,” Ashley says, “where you have the fabric on the walls and the curtains, the lampshades, and the headboard. This room is like a hug.”
The room also has a wonderful view of the garden, planted with a serene combination of gardenia and camellia plants. The latter have been a point of concern—and source of humor—for Ashley. “I kept calling Lisa Zeder, who designed the garden, and I was like, ‘The camellias, when are they going to bloom? You said they would bloom all year long.’ And she said, ‘Well, they take breaks.’ And I said, ‘All at the same time? Did they get together and have a meeting?’ ”
Ashley’s passion for color extends to her fondness for contemporary art, which she collects with assistance from Sadie Kirshman at The Pit gallery in Los Angeles. Coveted works include pieces by French photographer–street artist JR, Haitian American painter Patrick Eugène, and Canadian artist Annie Hémond Hotte, whose painting anchors the dining room.
The circular dining table was inspired by a special dinner at the San Ysidro Ranch. “There were eight of us,” Ashley says, “and it was the perfect conversation. There weren’t any side conversations. I really like a round table; it encourages everybody to have one conversation.” Armed with a tape measure, she returned to the ranch the next day, and Madeline had the table custom made to those dimensions and then also designed the chairs. There’s only one catch, Ashley says: “Every time I have a dinner party, I’m like, Well, darn, I can only have eight people!”
