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"View Slideshow\n\nWhen Kelsey Grammer was a neophyte actor in 1978, he spied one of his heroes in front of the John Golden Theatre on 45th Street in New York. \"I thought to myself, My God!\" he recalls. \"That's Henry Mancini!\"\n\nFor the irrepressible Grammer, who likes to play jazz piano in his spare time (such as it is) and has fantasized about writing music himself, the melodious spirits of \"Moon River\" and \"The Pink Panther\" still infuse the 10,000-square-foot Tudor-style Bel-Air residence that he and his wife, Camille, casually refer to as \"Henry's house.\"\n\n\"When I found out the Mancini house was available, I had a longing to spruce it up,\" says Kelsey Grammer.\n\n\"I was a big fan of his,\" explains the master of comedic timing, who affects none of the bluster of his famed television alter ego Frasier and felt too timid as a young actor to introduce himself to the legendary Hollywood film composer. Prophetically, perhaps, the two would meet years later at Frank Sinatra's 75th-birthday party, leading to a friendship and Mancini's cameo as a radio show call-in on Frasier who lamented the grating sound of his own voice.\n\nThus began the \"love letter to Henry,\" in the actor's words\u2014a house that emanates \"a Breakfast at Tiffany's vibe,\" most notably in the Grammers' glittering mosaic homage to 16th notes in the powder room. \"He was the most delightful man,\" says Grammer, whose affinity for multiple residences is impressive even for Hollywood. \"When I found out the Mancini house was available, I had a longing to spruce it up.\"\n\nIt functions as the couple's city hideaway, to which they commute from their primary residence in Malibu along with their two children, Mason Olivia (known as May), eight, and five-year-old Jude. The house was built in 1980 by the Mancini family, then purchased by the grandson of petroleum tycoon Armand Hammer. It possesses a country lane charm, its double-height rooms crisscrossed by ceiling beams.\n\nYet the interior configurations were decidedly quirky, with the master bedroom on the first floor. \"The ceiling lines made no sense\u2014some flat, some peaked,\" says Kenneth Alpert, whose KA Design Group has designed four previous Grammer residences. \"Hallways ran into hallways and rooms into rooms. We wanted to make the house understandable.\"\n\nThe actor, who began his career doing Shakespeare, purchased it in anticipation of working at Fox Studios. \"The show didn't work out,\" he says wryly. \"But the house was lovely.\" For the Grammers, the main challenge has been honoring the residence's pedigree\u2014once home to two huge Steinways and frequent visits by Quincy Jones and Mel Torm\u00E9\u2014without being slaves to it.\n\n\"I think of houses as having their own personality,\" he explains, unwinding on a Friday afternoon after a week of 6:30 a.m. commutes to Burbank, where he has been filming the new ABC comedy Hank (Henry Mancini's nickname, incidentally). \"I think it's important to approach a house in a way that's reflective of the original environment. Maybe I'm a sentimentalist, but I think that certain geographies call out for certain architecture. I like residences that reflect their place.\"\n\nEach major room overlooks the lush courtyard and swimming pool. Los Angeles architect Jim Eserts helped the couple capture some additional space, including a bedroom suite upstairs. A favorite family hangout, a screening room with swiveling chairs, was carved out of a portion of the massive living room (the couple's definition of entertaining: \"Let's sit down together and watch a movie,\" Grammer says).\n\nFor Camille Grammer, a designer herself, the pi\u00E8ce de r\u00E9sistance is her spa retreat of a bath, the shower tiled in blue onyx, each piece handpicked.\"It was definitely a layering process,\" says Andrew Petronio, partner at KA Design Group. \"The residence has a subtle calling to the past. But Kelsey and Camille also know what's going on in the design world and came to us with ideas.\"\n\nIndeed, not every client would stumble upon original Mancini sheet music papering a bath and decide to preserve an entire chunk of the wall on which it was mounted. \"It weighs a couple of hundred pounds,\" says the actor, whose effete tendencies are reserved for television. \"But it looks really cool.\"\n\n\"It's our canvas,\" Camille Grammer says of their enchanting residence. \"We put our heart into it.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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