Brian Tichenor and Raun Thorp make their California house cool and cozy
They succeeded, partly by design and partly by happenstance. Tichenor combed photos of the 1939 World’s Fair, for example, before designing the wood bookcases that reinforce the living room’s horizontal lines, which connect the space to the landscape. A lushly planted courtyard serves as the living room’s outdoor annex.
The couple bought some furnishings, like the Paul Frankl coffee table, the glamorous curved-back chairs (attributed to William Haines) and the Japanese-figure table lamps. But serendipity provided others: the swank, angular 1970’s sofa (which Thorp recovered in ‘‘fancy, but not too,’’ linen velvet), the vintage Lane end tables and the slipper chairs all came from Thorp’s parents and grandparents. This room is Modernism for grown-ups—part serious architect, part hipster, part Junior League. “It needed to be cushy but also functional,” Thorp says, and it is.