“The house has one of the most magnificent views I’ve seen here in Los Angeles,” says the interior designer Genna Margolis of local studio Shapeside of this upper Bel Air home which nails the monochrome interiors trend. “It sits at the end of a cul-de-sac and has unobstructed ocean, city, and canyon views.”

Inside, the laid-back luxe interiors that Genna Margolis has crafted for a young couple with two dogs make for a serene sanctuary, utilising earthy hues, myriad natural surfaces and slubby textures. The decor all looks like it was pulled together at a leisurely place, but the transformation took just three months after the clients stumbled upon the house (a good friend lives next door) and realised it was perfect. 

There were challenges with the diverging scale of the rooms; while most of the house has incredibly high ceilings and well-proportioned spaces, the ceiling height drops dramatically in the kitchen. “It’s pretty small and felt very closed off, so it was tricky to figure out a way to open it up without taking away space from the other rooms,” recalls Genna Margolis. 

Genna Margolis also opted for a‘really moody’monochromatic look which makes a virtue of the intimate scale of the room,making it feel cosy rather than cold, as the more obvious route of making everything white would have done.Her favourite space is the kitchen breakfast nook, which serves up an interesting contrast between furniture that riffs off traditional silhouettes and resolutely contemporary lighting.