Malibu Mid-Century Modern Beach House for Ellen Pompeo
A Buff and Hensman house on a Malibu bluff, restored over three years
A weekend house on a bluff above the Pacific, architecturally significant and quietly so. The work here was restoration before decoration, three years of it, with the original flow and footprint left exactly as the architects drew them.
Martyn recloaked the exterior in fresh teak and replaced the weathered openings with slim black powder-coated metal, so the glass now disappears when it slides away. Inside, the slippery terrazzo gave way to earthy concrete. Nothing about the plan moved.
The drama is in the stone. A rare and richly veined Brazilian marble called Black Agatha sheathes the entry, the living room, the dining room and the primary bedroom, cut and matched so the veining reads as one continuous gesture. The kitchen answers it in compact gleaming white, midcentury and deliberately restrained.
“Martyn is my longtime friend and decorative partner in crime. We get into loads of trouble together, and always have lots of fun.”
Ellen Pompeo
The primary bath is lined in Arabescato Vagli, which Martyn describes as a modern take on a Turkish hammam. The guest house is wrapped in tropical wallpapers and deep teal green lacquer, and the children’s room takes its pattern overhead rather than on the walls.
The house belongs to a family before it belongs to a magazine, and that was the brief throughout. Californian ease with real polish underneath it. This is the fourth project Martyn has completed with this client across more than a decade, which is its own kind of credential.
The project was the cover story of Architectural Digest’s January 2023 AD100 issue, the magazine’s annual Best of the Best, on which Martyn was also named.
Photography by Douglas Friedman for Architectural Digest
Architectural Digest
A tour of the house for Open Door, the Architectural Digest series now streaming on Netflix.
Star Style
This project appears in Star Style by Martyn Lawrence Bullard, his collection of the interiors he has created for the people who shape modern taste. Ellen Pompeo wrote the afterword. Signed copies are available here.
