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On a tree-lined street on the Westside of Los Angeles, in a neighborhood that time mostly forgot, a 1940s traditional bungalow sits behind a row of red geraniums in mismatched pots. Inside the home, belonging to ELLE Decor A-List designers Nathan Turner and Eric Hughes, the walls are papered in flowering blackberries and medallion prints. A slipper chair in leopard leans against owl-print curtains. Two “very large, very dramatic dogs,” as Turner calls them, are almost certainly nearby, demanding something from someone.
Turner spent nearly 20 years in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills before landing here, on the other side of the 405 freeway. The change felt, he says, like moving to a different city. The neighborhood won them over immediately—walkable, unhurried, and full of modest houses from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. “It oddly feels like a very old-fashioned American neighborhood,” Turner says. “It’s just so our vibe.” The bungalow is the couple’s primary residence, combining Turner’s layered, nostalgic look with Hughes’s clean, modern eye. It is also one of the projects featured in Turner’s new book, Nathan Turner’s I Love Decorating.
Victoria Pearson
Turner and Hughes’s dogs, Wally and Nacho, sit in the breakfast room wrapped in Nathan Turner California Collection Heaton wallpaper.
The move proved to be well-timed. Turner had just launched his own line of fabric and wallpaper, and a traditional American house with original moldings, a proper fireplace, and quirky ceiling breaks was exactly the place to put it to work. The couple agreed early on not to fight what the house already was—and to use what they had.
Two decorators with a shared storage unit can be a dangerous thing, and theirs was packed. In it were pieces Turner loved too much to sell when he closed his original shop, furniture Hughes had held onto for years, and objects saved with the perennial promise of “we’ll use that someday.” “Usually things sit in storage for an eternity and they never get used,” Hughes says. “This was a really nice way to shop our warehouse.”
The rediscovered pieces became the backbone of the house. From there the pair layered in finds from a buying trip to Round Top, Texas, and filled in the gaps with Turner’s own patterns on the furniture and walls. They also added a serious amount of Ralph Lauren—a brand whose look Turner calls one of his “early design touchstones.” “My childhood bedroom. My first apartment out of college. I love even more that my stuff actually works with theirs,” he says.
Victoria Pearson
The living room is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Calamine. The curtain fabric is Owl from the Nathan Turner California Collection. The rug was found at Lawrence of La Brea.
The end result is a home dense with pattern where every room tells a story. In the kitchen, which Turner calls “morning central,” the couple will cook or brew tea backdropped by Turner’s Theodora fabric, named after his grandmother, which hangs as bistro curtains. In the entry, Turner’s medallion print (a David Hicks–inspired grid) covers the walls, and a funny Art Deco table with feet, painted green after it was discovered in storage, sits on the floor.
The walls of the breakfast room, as seen on the cover of I Love Decorating, are covered in Turner’s Heaton wallpaper: a flowering blackberry print inspired by memories of picking wild berries at his family’s ranch. Anchoring the space is a towering green glass cabinet the couple found at Round Top. It was supposed to go in the living room but arrived five feet too tall, which is when Turner glanced into the breakfast room and found it fit with an inch and a half to spare. “It feels like these crazy things that we found in Texas were meant to be here,” he says.
Victoria Pearson
In the kitchen, the café curtains are done in Turner’s Theodora fabric.
Through portières off the breakfast room is a low-ceilinged den they call “grandpa chic.” It features a plaid sofa, a brown rug, and a framed photograph of Turner’s family ranch that goes everywhere with him.
In the primary bedroom, an 18th-century Flemish chest of drawers that has followed Turner through every home sits beneath his collection of 1880s Grand Tour photographs, hung together for the first time in mismatched frames. Down the hall, the original bathroom—yellow tile floors, vintage tub, original sink—went untouched. “We were like, ‘no notes,’” Turner says.
In fact, they made no structural changes to the home at all. “The bones were really great,” says Hughes. “There are a lot of people who would have come in and maybe done the bathroom or this and that,” Turner adds, “but we really like old things if they have character.”
Step Inside This California Bungalow
Open Gallery
Outside, the red geraniums—Hughes’s project—spill from their pots along the front walk. Both men grew up seeing red geraniums on porches and in window boxes, and both were enamored with the bright, unapologetic American red. “It makes me so happy to walk up and see those there,” Turner says. The couple spends weekends at their ranch house in Ojai, which makes this place the home they come back to on Monday, where they cook and watch movies and share space with two dogs. It is a home that argues for keeping what you have—for painting a table green instead of replacing it—and for trusting that the things you’ve collected, carted around, and stored in a warehouse will, eventually, find their places.
Julia Cancilla is the social media & news editor at ELLE Decor, where she oversees the brand’s socials and covers design, pop culture, and emerging trends. She also authors the monthly ELLE Decoroscope column. Her work has appeared in Inked magazine, House Beautiful, Marie Claire, and more.