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"AD Revisits: Jean Howard's Los Angeles House\nThe Los Angeles home renovated by Commune and featured in our January 2013 issue is no stranger to the pages of Architectural Digest. We look back at the house as it appeared in our June 1978 issue, when it was the residence of photographer and legendary Hollywood hostess Jean Howard\nIn the living room of photographer and hostess Jean Howard's Beverly Hills home, Venetian pieces\u2014a carved gilt-wood mirror and a neoclassical console\u2014complement Modigliani's Portrait of Elvira,while an 18th-century lacquer coromandel screen and a porcelain lamp harmonize with the moody, dark-green walls. \"I like people to come into my living room and not be afraid to sit down,\" Howard told AD in the June 1978 issue. \"That's why my taste runs to large pieces of furniture. They're practical and comfortable.\"\n\nSee this home as it appears in our January 2013 issue, respectifully redesigned by the Los Angeles firm Commune.\nSeating groups in the living room face away from the fireplace, creating a space that draws the visitor toward Jules Pascin's painting The Model.The portrait is mounted on a wall of beveled-glass panels designed in the 1940s by decorator William Haines, who did the original renovation of the home for Howard and her then-husband, talent agent Charles Feldman. \"Frankly, this house is for parties,\" Howard said in 1978. \"It loves people and good times, and I like to entertain several times a month. At one time or another almost everyone's been here\u2014from Judy Garland and Richard Burton singing their hearts out around the grand piano to President Kennedy, who loved coming back here for luncheons and dinners.\"\nPascin's Jeune Fille is a glowing focal point at one end of the living room. Beneath the portrait is an 18th-century Siamese standing Buddha. A bronze sculpture entitled Romeo et Juliette,by Miguel Berrocal, shares a low table with a tomato-shaped Lowestoft bowl. Said Howard: \"I dislike minuscule French tables with spindly legs that fall over when you take a deep breath.\"\nOn the Irish Georgian table in the dining room are a Meissen tureen and leaf-shaped dishes, gifts from Cole Porter. \"I love to mix the antique Meissen with modern hammered-aluminum plates from Nogales in Mexico. That's what makes a dinner table interesting\u2014variety,\" noted Howard.\nCranes decorate an 18th-century Japanese screen in the vibrant red dining room. \"Elsie de Wolfe, an innovative designer and hostess, also taught me a great many things,\" Howard explained. \"For example, she was one of the first to insist that the floral centerpiece on a dining room table should be low, so that one could talk to the other guests and see them\u2014without having to peer through a forest of greenery. In addition to learning from women like Linda Porter and de Wolfe, I've found a great deal on my travels. I'm always learning and collecting. I've found my paintings and furniture and coromandel screens in every part of the world.\"\nA Chinese red-lacquer screen decorated with flowers, and Camille Bombois's painting Bowl of Roses contribute to the gardenlike ambience in a bedroom. \"I hate ruffles and bows and gingham gewgaws, and I loathe four-poster beds with chichi draperies,\" Howard declared. \"They're as chilling as a slumber room in a mortuary.\" Behind the bed is an 18th-century Chinese screen with phoenix motif; the bomb\u00E9 commode and gilt-wood mirror, at right, are both Venetian."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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