For furniture designer Reza Feiz and his wife, television producer Sheila Griffiths, moving to a bigger house had been in the cards for over a decade: “As the kids grew, their friends grew, their collection of instruments grew, we realized we needed a place where we could spread out a bit,” says Feiz, the founder of Phase Design, a Los Angeles–based studio that specializes in artisan-crafted furniture and objects. Mind you, the couple wasn’t keen on shifting just anywhere. They specifically had their sights set on Fryman Canyon, a verdant hillside community in Studio City, Los Angeles, which they had grown to love, having visited multiple times over the years to tour this house or that. Its largely undiscovered status, not to mention its proximity to West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, made it ideal for the family.
Of course, with so few homes on the market, finding one that checked all their boxes, or any at all, was easier said than done. When one did come along, it checked none. Not that Feiz and Griffiths were particularly fazed. As they saw it, it was a diamond in the rough, and they were so taken with the bucolic locale that they made an offer anyway, committing to redesign the interior if it was accepted.
The couple stood by their word. No sooner had they signed the deed for the 1960s home than Feiz conjured up a vision board. Their previous abode, a lovely midcentury ranch, served as the muse for this one, though the couple introduced a bevy of functional interventions to ensure that this home served their current needs. They kept the design language equal parts practical and poetic, espousing an ethos of strength in simplicity, and selecting pieces that are visually inspiring but never too precious. “I had to rethink what was important when our wheaten terrier, Kassi, took all of two minutes to decide that our Gaetano Pesce 50th-anniversary-edition Up Chair was her favorite landing spot. Can’t fault her for good taste!” jokes the Iranian-born designer, who collaborated with Hunter Fleetwood and Mariapaz Fernandez of Fleetwood Fernandez Architects for the interior architecture, and landscape specialist Paul Robbins and bonsai artist Robert Pressler for the landscape design.
Feiz gave his own designs equal pride of place, deeming the house a testing ground for prototypes to come and go. He designated a lamp mock-up here, a special-edition stool there, a desk experiment in the media room, a not-yet-launched bench by the front door. Marrying old and new, he formed an ensemble of little moments that hold a mirror to his two-decade-long career in design. As he puts it, “I didn’t want the house to be a Phase showroom, but how can you be confident in your work if you don’t use it yourself?” Still, in doing so, he exercised tactful restraint, maintaining negative space between sculptural objects to create breathing room for people and things alike. He also kept the cocoon deliberately light, calming the floor with whitewashed natural oak, and the walls internally with natural clay and externally with smooth stucco, in a way that makes you wonder where the outdoors ends and the indoors begins.
The kitchen, Feiz reveals, is a family favorite. “We’re a sheekamoo bunch,” he muses—using the Farsi word for “foodie”—“so you’ll always find us hanging out around the island, with a Sabzi polo [a Persian dish made with herbed Basmati rice], or some pan-seared salmon, or cups brimful of my world-renowned formula of saffron-infused milk with espresso.” When they have guests, they graduate from the island to the dining table, whose eight chairs, Feiz says, are never enough. “Luckily we have a slew of Phase low-stool prototypes scattered throughout the house, and in these moments, all of them find their way around the table to accommodate an intimate dining experience!”
When the guests are gone and the kids have called it a night, Feiz and Griffiths like to savor the silence upstairs in the family lounge, with a round or two of tea. “In these quiet interludes, we often contemplate how, despite the decade-long wait, the stars ultimately aligned,” Feiz considers. “By luck or determination, or a bit of both, the house and gardens landed just as we had envisioned, a sanctuary to act as the welcoming backdrop to this next chapter of our lives.”