Back in 2010, a couple of interior designer Michael Smith's clients made an offer on his "gracious slate-roofed Bel Air house" and "pretty much everything in it," according to WSJ. magazine. Smith figured "why the hell not?" and sold, picking up as a replacement a post-modern 1994 house across the street from the old Spelling megamansion in Holmby Hills (according to Redfin, he paid $10.354 million). The same year, incidentally, Smith redecorated the Oval Office and the White House's private living quarters--he's hung the New York Times pan "The Audacity of Taupe" over his new toilet. The old listing for the new house says it was designed by Timothy Morgan Steele "w/ the art connoisseur in mind," which Smith has taken somewhat to heart: "It's interesting to buy a house that's all about art when you don't have that much ? We stretch what we can and use a lot of mirrors." He also calls the space both "heroic" and "almost institutional." See all the old listing photos here.
· Going Modern, Staying Grand [WSJ.]
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