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"View Slideshow\n\nThe building bug does not discriminate. It can strike anyone at any time and any place. A retired lawyer living in Pasadena, California, was afflicted sometime around 2000, the year that she, her money-manager husband and their three children said so long to Pasadena&amp;#39;s leafy environs and hello to Los Angeles&amp;#39;s bustling Westside. The impetus? A 1932 &amp;quot;cottagey-Tudor-y&amp;quot; house on a scenic knoll in one of the area&amp;#39;s swankier canyons. &amp;quot;All you see are trees and city views and, on clear days, the ocean,&amp;quot; she exults. &amp;quot;I felt like we were in Montecito.&amp;quot;\n\nThe allusion is significant. Several years earlier her husband&amp;#39;s business partner had commissioned a Portuguese colonial-style quinta on eight olive-studded acres in that fabled Santa Barbara suburb\u2014a residence the client deemed &amp;quot;the most beautiful house I&amp;#39;d ever seen in my life.&amp;quot; No surprise, then, that she would entrust the renovation of her new home to the quinta&amp;#39;s designer, Michael S. Smith. Smith&amp;#39;s first order of business, in a &amp;quot;whirlwind redo&amp;quot; of the main house that would enable the family to move in within a year, was to lighten up the place, which was overgrown and gloomy even by Tudor standards. He softened the brickwork outside with a mellow clay wash, painted the half-timbers sage green and applied a creamy ivory coating to the exterior stucco. Inside, he brightened the &amp;quot;castle-y&amp;quot; rooms by installing discreet skylights, lightening the heavy beams, and stripping and gray-washing the knotty-pine walls of a somewhat ponderous library-wing addition.\n\n&amp;quot;I wanted to do something with the interiors that was clearly inspired by the architecture,&amp;quot; says Smith, who&amp;#39;s known for his layered, evolved-over-generations aesthetic. &amp;quot;But I always love English houses that are a little more exuberant, a little more interesting, so it&amp;#39;s not all super-severe-looking Georgian decoration.&amp;quot; The rooms he put together have all the warmth and prettiness of traditional English interiors, but their multiple references strike a looser note. There&amp;#39;s no dearth of serious English antiques\u2014George II, meet George III\u2014but they mingle with overstuffed pieces in homey fabrics, chunky Chinese bureaus, exotic Moorish side tables. Coarse sisals foil exquisite antique rugs; bold ikats play off pale English chintzes. The artwork \u2014on walls clad in embroidered fabric or chinoiserie paper or Venetian plaster\u2014ranges from 16th-century impressions to the dog portraits and volcano paintings that the client began collecting seriously in the course of the renovation. She stacks books high on tables and desks, keeps fresh flowers in the rooms and has no complaint with her wheaten terriers making themselves comfortable on the living room furniture.\n\nNot long after settling into the house, the couple had the opportunity to purchase the quinta from their friends in Montecito, fully furnished down to the flatware. A dream come true\u2014if it hadn&amp;#39;t been for the fact that by this time the client had full-blown construction fever. So it was the work in Los Angeles that carried on\u2014and on. &amp;quot;It was sort of a four-phase project,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;We did the house and moved in, and then we did the lawn and the poolhouse and pool pavilion and the tennis court.&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;She likes to build stuff,&amp;quot; Smith deadpans.)\n\nThe backyard, a jungly peninsula with a sharp drop-off, was cleared, extended with retaining walls and eventually transformed into formal grounds with a glamorous Old Hollywood feeling. Landscape designer Christine London installed a terraced lawn for the owners; planted mature oaks, sycamores and other specimen trees around the property; and put in an elegant new swimming pool. The pool is flanked by a poolhouse and pavilion, designed by the architect Oscar Shamamian, right out of The Philadelphia Story. Gravel paths and walls of brick and Santa Barbara sandstone traverse the slopes below. (&amp;quot;It was like building Skylab,&amp;quot; says Smith.) The most difficult and time-consuming project was constructing a tennis court at the bottom of the property. &amp;quot;It was a junkyard down there,&amp;quot; says the client. &amp;quot;Scrub brush and old tires.&amp;quot; Her plans to put up a &amp;quot;Newport Casino-feeling garden structure&amp;quot; around the court were complicated somewhat by the legal requirement that it be noncombustible, but the aluminum latticework she settled on, painted pea green and laced with wisteria, would probably delight Casino creators McKim, Mead and White. (The court also scores high marks from two pros\u2014the owners&amp;#39; son, a championship player, and his friend Serena Williams.)\n\nThe couple are now in the final phase of construction on a guesthouse that sits high above a lush ravine. &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s like a tree house,&amp;quot; says the client, &amp;quot;with a great west-facing view so you can watch the sunsets.&amp;quot; According to Smith, &amp;quot;Very few people like the problem-solving aspect of building, but she really gets into the detailing. She loves meeting with architects, builders, landscapers\u2014loves the process and has really become a scholar of decorating and architecture.&amp;quot;\n\nWhat&amp;#39;s the next assignment for this dedicated pupil? At the moment she&amp;#39;s working with Smith on designing a small residence for her parents. In addition, she says, &amp;quot;I have one ground-up house in me that I still want to do. English Georgian, perfectly proportioned, on a beautiful piece of land. My husband, on the other hand, wants to build in Hawaii.&amp;quot; Whatever they decide to do, her original training ground remains their home. &amp;quot;Unless,&amp;quot; she says, flashing an impish grin, &amp;quot;something else comes along.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/smith-article-2009-01>