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"Tour Anjelica Huston and Robert Graham\u2019s Eclectic California Home\nSculptor Robert Graham designed the Ven\u00ADice, California, home for himself and wife Angelica Huston, star of The Grifters and The Addams Family\nAnjelica Huston in the living room of her home in Venice, California.\n\u201CHe gave me a very beautiful shell in which to place my oyster,\u201D says Anjelica Huston of her husband, sculptor Robert Graham (shown here), who designed their house.\nA terracotta-colored wall contributes to the building&amp;#39;s solid massing at the street elevation.\nStraddling the bronze courtyard door is a three-ton block of marble. \u201CIt&amp;#39;s a handmade house with fleshy concrete and rubbed-in, patinated surfaces,\u201D Graham notes. \u201CIt runs the spectrum of warm to cold, depending on how the light hits it.\u201D\n\u201CBob is training me in restraint,\u201D says Huston, \u201Cbut not in austerity or minimalism.\u201D A Mexican carved wood icon stands on a plateau of the living room wall; a pair of giltwood lamps carved as archangels flank the fireplace. \u201CLight is essential to the design,\u201D Graham says. \u201CThe unpainted plaster actively picks it up, absorbs it and throws it back.\u201D\nA Graham figure fragment, whose base is engraved For Anjelica and (twice) Love, rests on a low table in the living room, surrounded by pieces that include silver temple bells.\nIn the living room, needlework pillows by Huston&amp;#39;s mother are scattered on the Donghia sofas; the armchairs are also Donghia. The harlequin tapestry is 19th-century French.\nThe Ming-style table and chairs, from the estate of Empress Su Lin, were discovered by Huston in Los Angeles&amp;#39;s Chinatown. On the tansu chest are a circa 300 A.D. Gandhara head; a Waterford ashtray and crystal decanter; and a silver tray given to John Huston by the cast and crew of The Asphalt Jungle. The oil-on-canvas triptych is by David Novros.\n\u201CI designed the forms and spaces exclusively for her,\u201D says Graham of his wife. \u201CI followed her program. My responsibility to my client was met in having made her happy.\u201D Two recycled-pinewood stairs descend from the bedroom: One leads to the dining room, the other curves down to a bath. Project manager John Cordic executed the design.\nThe courtyard wall of the cantina-like kitchen is a David Novros fresco. Atop the kitchen is an open landing, which lies off Huston&amp;#39;s study.\n\u201CI don&amp;#39;t know how to live sparely,\u201D says Huston, \u201Cbut Bob does. With me, objects are apt to amass.\u201D Comments Graham, \u201CI make things; I don&amp;#39;t need to collect them.\u201D Billy Al Bengston&amp;#39;s 1976 Bahia Almejas Draculas dominates Huston&amp;#39;s second-floor study. Among the memorabilia is, at far left, her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Prizzi&amp;#39;s Honor.\n\u201CMy collections started pre-birth,\u201D Huston says. The basement game room\u2014its walls a counterpoint to the white stucco\u2014is lined with artworks (by Jasper Johns, John Huston, and others) and photographs (including ones by Helmut Newton and Diane Arbus). \u201CMy objects follow me wherever I go. They remind me of who I am and where I came from.\u201D\nA bedroom terrace overlooks the courtyard and faces the master suite.\nSmall framed Japanese and Indian erotic prints are displayed in one of the bedrooms. The paving on the terrace\u2014an extension of the room\u2014is pink concrete, accented by brass strips.\n\u201CI&amp;#39;ve traveled so much and have always created my own environment wherever I&amp;#39;ve gone,\u201D says Huston. \u201CIt was out of necessity when I was younger, but the hippie/gypsy part of my nature is still quite evident.\u201D Observes Graham, \u201CAnjelica is a nester. She makes something out of what&amp;#39;s there.\u201D Fortuny fabric covers two armchairs in Huston&amp;#39;s study, which looks out over the rear garden. The cherub paintings by Charles Chaplin are 19th-century French; the majolica birdcage is an antique.\n\u201CWith the courtyard and terraces, the house offers me a full interior and exterior life,\u201D Huston remarks. \u201CI&amp;#39;m a Cancer. I have both of what I need here, which is comfort and places to escape to in the house and\u2014so important\u2014the sense of never feeling hemmed in.\u201D A lap pool, which is joined by a Jacuzzi, forms the western edge of the courtyard.\n\u201CIt isn&amp;#39;t finished,\u201D says Graham of the house. \u201CWe built into it its constantly changing nature: It will continue to be elaborated and worked on.\u201D Between the stair to the master dressing room and bath and the stucco wall is a David Novros fresco. \u201CThe house isn&amp;#39;t ossified. Venice isn&amp;#39;t ossified. It&amp;#39;s a good building for this town.\u201D"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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