In Living Color
Art and antiques brought Kelley and Malcolm McDowell together and set the tone for their Ojai home
Written by Jennifer Blaise Kramer
Photographs by Victoria Pearson
Designer Kelley McDowell has a thing for Austen Pierpont houses. The architect is an Ojai legend who worked on the Ojai Valley Inn and the famed ranch that belonged to both Reese Witherspoon and Kathryn Ireland. In 2000, Kelley bought her third Pierpont home, though this one—built in 1928—was worn down and desolate. “It was a bare house in the middle of a field,” she recalls. With four-inch “cabin curtain green” shag carpet, a 1960s kitchen, and knob and tube electrical, it was primed for her hands-on, revival design instincts.
“I bought it as a project, but then I fell in love with it,” she admits. “I put it on ice for 10 years because I thought if I finished it, my husband would make me sell it.” That husband of course is actor Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Entourage) to whom she’s been married for 27 years. Their mutual love of collecting was one thing that pulled them together.
“When we first met, we strangely liked all the same things,” she recalls. An antique ice-fishing lure was the first item the pair bought together—fittingly so, as Kelley’s home state is Minnesota where ice-fishing houses are winter institutions. Over the years, Malcolm would travel on location and while he was on set, she’d go antiquing. As their collection of early American and English primitive antiques grew (along with their family, which now includes three sons together) and their homes changed, one thing remained constant: a white-washed backdrop. “It suits collecting,” she says. Various white walls from Los Angeles to Ojai have displayed their colorful collections of flags, pottery, masks, quilts, advertising signs, and more. Kelley admits it’s all gone a little “ballistic,” which created a challenge in moving from a 10,000-square-foot house into this 2,800-square-foot one.
A skull and crossbones embedded in the cement kitchen island was inspired by the cemetery walls at the Old Mission Santa Barbara.
But once they agreed to make this labor of love their home base, Kelley went all in, bringing it back to its original Pierpont perfection and glory. Outside, damaged stucco was painstakingly redone while the interior walls were hand-plastered and beams sandblasted. New hardwood floors went in and a midcentury roof was replaced by a 200-year-old tiled one from France for instant patina. Initially there was not one stone on the property, but a single mason created stonework that looked appropriately aged while Kelley brought in 50 mature olive trees from her secret source in Agoura Hills, Charme d’Antan, which helped locate key pieces here and abroad—from the trees to on-tone tiles. Then came the hard part.
Given the significant downsize, the couple had to edit their collections down to the best of the best, showcasing favorites at home and storing the rest. Among the favorites are a Cole Bros. Circus flag from Vancouver that hangs in the hall to the boys’ room—which is decorated camp-style down to the vintage Boy Scout flag. A gold gorilla that once lived at Coney Island now hangs above the master bath’s claw-foot tub. The couple spotted it in a design book, fell for the animal instantly, and later met the dealer by chance in San Francisco—and he was willing to sell. “It was complete serendipity,” she says. “We manifested that monkey.”
A lion and unicorn shield from 1780 hails from Kelley’s favorite shop in London, The Lacquer Chest.
Invisible shelves hold 40 lucha libre Mexican wrestler masks lined up neatly to look like a painting.
Outside the kitchen, a rustic dining table is topped with old incense burners as makeshift candle holders while chairs are draped with Mexican serapes for the occasional chill.
“I’m a collector of everything. If you point to something, I probably have 100 more nearby. Sometimes a collection becomes opportunistic.”
While space may be tighter, the whimsical, colorful collections continue. Locally, the couple frequents Early California Antiques on State Street and Revival Antiques in Pasadena, where they scored the living room’s series of Ranchero chandeliers. Believing more is more, multiple paintings line the walls and heaps of bright Navajo and Moroccan rugs get layered (never cut) beautifully, but casually on nearly every floor. The textiles, the art, the pottery stacked in the kitchen is all intentionally abundant and “really looks like this all the time,” lending an entirely original feel.
“I’m a collector of everything. If you point to something, I probably have 100 more nearby,” Kelley says. “Sometimes a collection becomes opportunistic. You start and keep finding something you didn’t know you loved.” ●
An above-ground pool was modeled after antique cisterns in Europe, adorned with a stone coyote, bobcat, and bear—a local animal riff off an exhibit at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
