An exercise in letting go-that's how the designer Leah Ring describes her Yucca Valley, California, home, a secondary residence she shares with her husband, the artist Adam de Boer. De Boer, in fact, proposed on the property, though one year and a renovation later, a rogue sandstorm blew through on the day of the nuptials, a fitting welcome to desert life if ever there was one.
Ring-whose six-year-old Los Angeles-based studio, Another Human, works across residential and commercial interiors and product design-finds ample inspiration off the beaten (and sometimes brambly) path. Having studied under ELLE DECOR A-List designer Frances Merrill of Reath Design, she was well equipped to spot the potential in the compound, an atypical if otherwise unremarkable arrangement of four buildings just outside Joshua Tree National Park.
"I didn't want something that had been flipped," she says. And flipped it was not: One of the buildings even lacked a foundation. Ring painted each a poppy hue and set about manifesting "the most extreme version" of her taste throughout, designing a dynamic weekend retreat where she could replenish her creative juices while still being a stone's throw from the city. The result of the yearlong renovation happily leaves timidity, well, in the dust.
GO FOR BOLD
This story is from the May 2023 edition of Elle Decor US.
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This story is from the May 2023 edition of Elle Decor US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Is it possible to simultaneously go back in time and leap forward? This was the challenge a couple set for themselves upon purchasing a salmon-pink 1869 house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from Longfellow House, the National Historic Site that served as George Washington's headquarters during the revolution. We loved all the beautiful old details of this house, the homeowner says.
Just Like That, But Cheaper. -One writer tried to replicate a classic ELLE DECOR interior in his apartment. Could he do it for $500?
It was all about the green curtains. In 2008, to my great surprise, I was offered a ninemonth fellowship based in New York City. I had lived there twice before, both times unsuccessfully, meaning I had failed to create any kind of significant social life, and so this was a chance not only to do research for my new novel, but also an opportunity to get things right. I swore I wouldn't let the city break me a third time.
And How! - Decorator Nick Olsen transforms a Sag Harbor home into a Hamptons retreat with an irreverent humor.
If you must go to the Hamptons, however-because it is devilishly good fun, after all-you may notice an apparently modest, low-slung cottage on Sag Harbor's Main Street and think, with a comfortable sort of feeling, Now that is how a house should look. Nestled amid the Botox bars, helipads, and club-staurants, it could almost set the sordid world aright both a rebuke and a solution to the chaos that surrounds it. A real home.
