A Moroccan-flavored remodel in Silver Lake
Designers Karen Vidal and husband Guy, right, turned a dreary Spanish-style four-plex in Silver Lake into a whimsical single-family residence now owned by Edward Kelleher, left. “It’s easy to call it a Moroccan fantasy, but really it’s more than that,” Karen Vidal says, adding that authenticity wasn’t the goal. The Vidals didn’t want to replicate a particular place, culture or look, but rather create their own world — an imagined retreat unlike any other. Here, a striped stairwell serves as transition from the public living areas on the first floor to the more private quarters on the second floor. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Designers Karen and Guy Vidal turned a dreary Spanish-style four-plex into a color-splashed bachelor’s pad.
The building was remodeled so that a claustrophobic landing that had led to four different apartments at the top of a stairwell now opens up into an airy space. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
A the marble-topped bar on the ground floor sits off an outdoor living room. “We always knew this would be the party area,” says designer Karen Vidal, shown here with homeowner Edward Kelleher. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Kelleher, a modest, low-key attorney, might be the last person one would expect to live in the wildly colored, whimsically decorated house, but it has proved to be a good fit. Here, Kelleher sits in the upstairs living room framed by arches whose decorative painting was supposed to be a fanciful interpretation of Moroccan design, not an authentic replica. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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The upstairs dining room is painted a vivid hue — Moroccan Spice, part of Benjamin Moore’s Aura line of paint — that Karen Vidal says is not too red and not too orange. Because large windows and arches limit wall space, Vidal thought the room could manage a bold color. A glass light fixture hangs like a giant piece of candy. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
In the main kitchen, copper cutouts have been overlaid on wood cabinets with a milk paint finish. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Karen Vidal crosses the bottom of the stairwell, which she always envisioned with broad stripes. With every step up, the stripes emphasize that one is leaving the work space downstairs and moving toward the living space upstairs. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Designers Guy and Karen Vidal envisioned this downstairs room as a yoga room, with soothing green paint, low-lying furniture and lighting meant to create a serene atmosphere. In the distance: office space that Vidals have begun renting from Kelleher for their firm, Design Vidal. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Karen Vidal took an open lantern and had it wired as a lighting fixture. It hangs on a hook that she had fashioned in the shape of an elephant’s trunk — one of the recurring design motifs in the house. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
A punched-brass Moroccan piece on the ground floor looks like an objet d’art during the day, but by night it becomes something entirely different. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
In Edward Kelleher’s master bedroom, Moroccan light fixtures complement a headboard that’s actually a room divider screwed to the wall. The pillar on the left is one of two salvaged pieces that delineate a sitting area off to the side and help to define this bedroom as the master. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Throughout Edward Kelleher’s house, lighting fixtures purchased from various local import stores transform the spaces at night. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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In a ground-floor living room, leather studded chairs and a wood table with a drop-in brass bowl give the space a sense of romance. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
The Silver Lake house was a dilapidated four-plex before its recent renovation, which includes artist Patricia Callicott’s hand-cut tile mosaics and freehand paintings that include elephants in the mural above the entry. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
