Interior designer Meghan Eisenberg modernized her late grandparents’ beloved home into a cozy nest for her family of four.Growing up in Los Angeles, Meghan Eisenberg was a regular at her grandparents’ home. 

Today, Eisenberg runs a flourishing namesake interior design firm based in LA. But for the decorator—who is now married and with two kids of her own—the home was special in more ways than one. After all, it had been lovingly designed by her grandfather (midcentury architect Donald G. Park) in 1950 while he was still a student at the USC School of Architecture. 

Though Eisenberg’s grandmother passed away while she was in college, her grandfather continued to work as an architect and lived in the home until the day he died in 2020. “Before his passing, I was able to work alongside him on a book that chronicled his major works around Los Angeles,” she shares. “So it was my utmost privilege to be able to acquire the house and give it a second life as a prized family heirloom.”But for a home so steeped in nostalgia, the prospect of a remodel was emotionally fraught for Eisenberg. 

Using her grandfather’s architecture as the guiding light, Eisenberg rooted her design decisions in the home’s existing details. The terracotta tiles in the dining room and foyer, for instance, were restored to their former glory, while vertical tambour paneling—originally limited to one small area of the house—was extended into the dining room and kitchen. Likewise, the wood-paneled walls of the family room were preserved, save for one sun-damaged section, which received new walnut panels left to “age” outdoors for a month. Of course, what she couldn’t save, she substituted with additions that her grandfather would likely have approved of, such as Luis Barragán–inspired plain sawn hardwood flooring, trucked in to replace the wall-to-wall carpets.

As for the decor, Eisenberg opted for a midcentury ranch-house style in a bid to dial up the color and pattern. “Since my mom grew up in this house as a flower child of the ’60s, I leaned into the floral motifs and paisleys and just adapted them to give off a more bohemian vibe. I also embraced the corduroys, velvets, plaids, and ginghams that I love so much.”