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"The delighted owners of this Los Angeles home already lived in the neighborhood, but on a narrow lot that would not accommodate expanding their house to meet the needs of their active family. Committed to the area, with its hillside streets and ocean breezes recalling an idealized midcentury California, they searched in vain for a place that lived up to their inner vision.  When they couldn&amp;#039;t find the perfect home that loomed large in their imagination, they settled for a house with potential on a large, secluded lot and turned to Barbara Barry, one of the leading lights of the design world, to work her signature magic.   &amp;quot;The clients are very sophisticated and well traveled and they love to entertain,&amp;quot; says Barry. &amp;quot;They like to open up their house so parties can flow seamlessly from indoors to out.&amp;quot; The new site, with its mature garden near the sea, was wonderfully reminiscent of the client&amp;#039;s favorite places\u2014from the Amalfi coast to the Proven\u00E7al countryside\u2014and perfect for indoor/outdoor socializing. But the sprawling house itself, with its vintage wet bars and Flintstones style, was absolutely no place like home.  &amp;quot;It was remodel heaven,&amp;quot; notes Barry. The enchanting notion of a lost era of California chic, she readily admits, is a fantasy, but the ability to &amp;quot;build back better than it ever was&amp;quot; is very real. To do so, everything needed to go. Oh, and one more thing: The entire renovation had to be completed in just nine months.  According to Barry, &amp;quot;This was a total transformation.&amp;quot; Almost everything about the existing house was overscale and ill considered, she says, noting gaping, out-of-scale windows, an enclosed spiral staircase and massive decorative ceiling beams. &amp;quot;The original living room and master suite were like football fields,&amp;quot; observes Ryan Coultis, a senior designer at Barbara Barry, Inc. During the renovation, the entire interior was taken down to studs and subflooring, and the rooms were reapportioned to a graceful, more intimate, more human scale. &amp;quot;We touched every surface,&amp;quot; says Barry, &amp;quot;reconfigured every room, lowering ceilings, paneling rooms and redesigning fireplaces, doors and lighting.&amp;quot;  Barry&amp;#039;s remarkably assiduous renovation focused on creating highly functional spaces with harmonious proportions, easy interior traffic flow, superb light and a rich array of materials. The ample kitchen\u2014formerly a dark warren with a single window\u2014is now suffused with sunlight from a bank of windows that frames an idyllic view of fruit trees and terraced gardens.  For the adjoining breakfast room, Barry designed an oval table and a streamlined, wall-length credenza. A sextet of midcentury chairs\u2014curvaceous fiberglass shells balanced on bases that recall the Eiffel Tower\u2014mixes comfortably with the new pieces. The dynamic vintage chandelier contributes to the room&amp;#039;s easy elegance. Because of Barry&amp;#039;s carefully composed palette and judiciously limited range of materials, this major renovation displays a comprehensive vision and tranquil atmosphere. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Barbara Barry Renovation.&amp;quot;   The master suite, located directly above the living room, was as vast and impersonal as an anonymous high-rise lobby, says Barry, who lowered the ceiling and installed ivory-tone wood panels with delicate shadow-line moldings\u2014the same paneling she used downstairs and one of the home&amp;#039;s understated unifying elements. Barry created a new entryway and added linen storage, considerably reducing the room&amp;#039;s square footage. She and her colleagues divided the large suite into a trio of islands: bedside, hearth and seating area (most of the furniture is of Barry&amp;#039;s design).  Like the rest of the house, the suite relies on delicate colors, simplified lines and lots of natural light. Throughout the house, the windows were reframed to a more appropriate scale and dressed in layers of sheer blinds and soft, thick draperies. An unobtrusively formal and simply practical solution, the window treatment filters the sunlight and beautifully finishes the room, yet the drapes can be closed to provide an instant cocoon.  &amp;quot;We ask our clients to embrace all the different ways a room can feel when you use natural light and lamplight,&amp;quot; remarks Barry. Lighting is always a key element in her work, and she has been charmingly outspoken and unrepentant about her opinion of ubiquitous overhead lighting: &amp;quot;I abhor it.&amp;quot; Much more typical of a Barry design are floor lamps and table lamps\u2014often unique, often playing loose with scale\u2014that invest rooms with saucy wit. Barry&amp;#039;s exacting eye and refined aesthetic consistently bring to mind the Baudelairean poetic refrain: luxury, tranquility and pleasure.  The transformation of this residence, from &amp;quot;house with potential&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;place of their dreams,&amp;quot; is astonishingly harmonious. In a newly created light-filled study, the hemp wall covering provides a palegold textural backdrop for the room&amp;#039;s clean-cut wooden furnishings. A spare and stylish bookshelf, designed by Barry, features open shelves and neat geometry, a confident nod to early Los Angeles modernism and its sympathy for well-crafted materials and purposeful intentions.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Barbara Barry Renovation.&amp;quot;  Santa Barbara\u2013based landscape architect Isabelle Greene, a granddaughter of Henry Mather Greene (of Greene &amp;amp;amp; Greene, California&amp;#039;s famous Arts and Crafts architects), created a lush yet sustainable garden design that celebrates native plants, xeriscaping, seasonal blooms, organic fruits and vegetables and old-growth trees. For the hardscaping, Greene sourced the stone locally. For plantings, she installed a border of California scrub oaks, which are drought-tolerant evergreen shrubs, along the edge of the property, creating a dense, green wall of privacy that shelters the bucolic property from the street. An all\u00E9e of crape myrtles traces a pathway to the house&amp;#039;s back patio.  The patios of this home are used as nearly year-round outdoor rooms, and the furniture is a rusticated take on the same aesthetic as the one indoors, part of the seamless overall creation.  &amp;quot;This may not be the California of the 1940s,&amp;quot; reflects Barry. &amp;quot;But with all Los Angeles has to offer nowadays, I think it might even be better.&amp;quot; Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;A Barbara Barry Renovation.&amp;quot; Click here to see the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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