Article: Art Deco House Interior: A Charcoal Moderne Home in Los Angeles, California
Art Deco House Interior: A Charcoal Moderne Home in Los Angeles, California
An art deco house interior works best when the architecture leads and the furniture follows the curves it sets. This one sits in the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles: a charcoal Moderne house with black steel windows, a curved drive and a rounded two-story corner wing that wraps the living room in glass. Nine rooms across two floors, from the living room to the guest room, and under every room you will find pieces from AURA close to what you see.
A note on this house: it is an AURA design concept, built room by room to show how one palette can hold a whole home together. The rooms are a study. The furniture below each one is real and in the AURA catalog.
Most people picture art deco as gold on black. Sunbursts, mirrored walls, a cocktail bar in the corner. The Los Angeles version is quieter. The Moderne houses of the hills traded the zigzags for long horizontal lines and rounded corners, with steel windows set in bands, and the inside follows the outside. Curves turn up in the sofa backs and the desk and the bath mirrors. Fluting runs up the fireplace and across the sideboards. Brass is there, but it stays small.
Blue hour is when this house makes sense. The hills go violet, the steel frames turn to thin black lines against the sky, and the lamps inside start to glow through the curtains. The walls are warm taupe and cream rather than black, and they catch that lamplight and hold it, so the rooms read soft instead of glossy. Lacquer and velvet do the rest. Lacquer throws back a sharp line of light while velvet swallows it, and a room that has both never looks flat after dark. For where the look came from, read our history of art deco interior design.
The common mistake is treating art deco as a theme. Gold on every surface, a sunburst mirror in every room, black and gold until the house feels like a hotel bar. A good art deco home picks one or two moves per room and repeats them through the house: a curve, a fluted edge, one brass piece. Start with the shape of the big piece. A curved sofa or a rounded desk does more for the look than any amount of gilt.
The living room inside the rounded wing
This is the room the house is built around. The rounded wing wraps it in a curved wall of tall steel windows, and the fire sits in a fluted column on the flat inner wall between the window bays. A curved sofa faces the fire across a pair of round coffee tables, with two lounge chairs set off to the right.
The curved sofa is the right call here. It echoes the glass, and a straight sofa in a round room leaves dead corners behind it. A curve follows the wall and pulls everyone toward the fire. Keep the tables round for the same reason, and leave a clear path along the windows so the glass still reads as one long sweep.
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See more in the art deco living room ideas lookbook. Browse art deco living room furniture.
The dining room behind the band window
The dining room fills the front of the low wing on the right, behind the one long band of windows you see from the drive. Six velvet chairs ring a black lacquer table. Fluted sideboards stand against both side walls, and candles burn down the middle of the table.
A band window sets the height of everything in this room. Keep the sideboards below its sill so the line runs unbroken from wall to wall. Lacquer earns its place at night. It doubles every candle on the tabletop, while the velvet soaks up the glare, so the room glows instead of glinting. Leave about three feet behind each chair. A table this formal looks wrong when the chairs scrape the wall.
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See more in the art deco dining room ideas lookbook. Browse art deco dining room furniture.
The kitchen under a fluted hood
The kitchen sits behind the dining room, at the back of the low wing. The range stands under a fluted hood on the back left run, the sink sits under the big back window, and a freestanding island holds the middle of the room with stools pulled up on the near side.
The fluted hood is the one big gesture, and the kitchen is better for keeping it to one. Everything around it stays plain, so the hood reads as architecture instead of decoration. Stools with a brass frame and a dark seat carry the dining room into the kitchen without asking the cabinets to change.
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For stools and lighting, browse art deco furniture.
The TV room and its curved velvet sofa
The TV room sits at the back of the main block, behind the stair hall. A curved velvet sofa faces the wall-mounted screen. A round lacquer table sits in front of it with room to pass, and two tall windows open the back wall.
A television is the hardest thing in a house to make look deco, so do not try. Let the screen stay a black rectangle, switched off, and spend the effort on what faces it. Velvet is the best fabric for a room you watch in. It drinks the light from the screen instead of throwing it back, and nothing in the house is softer to sink into after dinner.
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See more in the art deco sofa ideas lookbook. Browse art deco sofas.
The office with a curved lacquer desk
The office is at the back left, tucked behind the living room. A curved lacquer desk stands on two pedestals in front of a single tall window. Bookshelves run up both side walls, and the chair sits on the near side of the desk.
A curved desk changes how a home office feels. It has no back to hide, so it can float in the room instead of pushing against a wall. Give it about three feet on each side to the shelves, and keep the shelves calm. Books with a few objects between them, not a wall of trophies.
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Browse art deco office furniture, or go straight to art deco desks.
The primary bedroom behind the curved glass
Upstairs, the primary bedroom takes the top of the rounded wing. The bed has a tall channel tufted headboard and stands on the solid inner wall, with a nightstand on the right and the curved windows sweeping around the side of the room. Candles run along the sill.
Put the bed on the solid wall, always. In a room with this much glass, a headboard against a window never feels settled, and the curve is better as something you look at from the pillow. Channel tufting is the bedroom version of fluting. Its vertical lines repeat the steel window frames, and a tall headboard gives a big round room one firm anchor.
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See more in the art deco bedroom ideas lookbook. Browse art deco bedroom furniture.
The primary bath and its floating double vanity
The primary bath sits behind the bedroom at the back of the wing. A freestanding tub stands under a tall window with a filler rising from the floor, and a floating double vanity runs along the right wall under two round mirrors. Candles line the ledge.
Round mirrors over a long vanity are the cleanest deco move in the house. Two circles against a straight counter do what a whole wall of patterned tile tries to do. A floating vanity keeps the floor visible underneath, which makes the room feel wider, and about five feet of clear floor in front of it lets two people use it at once.
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See more in the art deco bathroom ideas lookbook. Browse art deco bathroom furniture and art deco bathroom vanities.
The guest room under two square windows
The guest room sits in the main block, behind the two small square windows on the upper floor. The bed is centered under them, with a nightstand and a lamp on each side and taller windows at either end of the room.
Symmetry does the work in a small room. Matching lamps and nightstands make it feel planned, and a guest knows at once which side is theirs. Keep the bed upholstered and the palette close to the primary bedroom, so the house feels like one home all the way to the last door.
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Browse art deco beds.
How to get this look
You do not need a house in the Hollywood Hills to get this. You need a few rules, applied in every room.
- Start with one curve per room. A curved sofa, a rounded desk or a pair of round mirrors sets the shape for everything around it.
- Use fluting as trim. A fluted hood in the kitchen, a fluted sideboard in the dining room. One per room is plenty.
- Pair lacquer with velvet. Lacquer reflects the lamps and velvet absorbs them. Together they keep a dark room from going flat.
- Keep brass small. Lamp bases, mirror frames, stool legs. Never a whole wall of gold.
- Light it for blue hour. Lamps and candles go on before the sky goes dark, and the ceiling light stays off.
Shop by room: living room, dining room, bedroom, office, entryway and bathroom. New to the style? Start with what is art deco in interior design, or browse every room in the art deco interior design ideas lookbook.
Shop the whole house
Every piece in the shop rows above is in the AURA catalog. Start with the room you sit in after dark. That is where the curves and the lamplight pay off first.
More homes: AURA house tours.
