When Noora Raj Brown moved—“kicking and screaming a little bit”—from New York to Los Angeles with her husband, entrepreneur Ryan Brown, she packed a mental picture of what their new home should look like. As one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s right hands at Goop, where she is EVP of brand, Raj Brown has a knack for dreaming up mood-board-worthy scenes with defined sensibilities. At the time, she says her personal reverie centered on a midcentury-modern glass box, preferably perched in a wooded canyon, recalling a favorite Craig Ellwood house in Brentwood. “It’s funny, I had this vision in my head of what life in LA would be like,” Raj Brown confides. “And we kind of ended up in the exact opposite.”
Following a stint in a Spanish-style bungalow in West Hollywood—“a very cliché New Yorker move,” she laughs—the couple, now with an infant daughter to consider, let practicality enter the picture: somewhere walkable, close to the beach (Ryan is a surfer), and with enough space for their growing family and overnight guests. When they were shown a roomy Pacific Palisades pile, with a short stroll to the village, ocean, and architectural features that reminded Raj Brown of townhouses in Manhattan’s West Village—including rare woodburning fireplaces—she “instantly knew [it] was something special.” To help realize her dream, she turned to LA-based interior designer Adam Hunter, known for refined, bespoke interiors that embrace California’s ample sunshine and sense of high drama. (Hunter, whose roster of Hollywood clients includes Neil Patrick Harris and Christina Hendricks, spent a decade performing on Broadway.)
“They were so warm and happy and young and cool,” the designer says from his first meeting with the homeowners. “And we identify as New Yorkers, even though we live in LA now—there was that instant connection.” Their bond was further cemented by Hunter’s comfort with a bold palette. “He has such a command [of] color, and I’m very much in the ‘death to beige’ category,” Raj Brown says.
Before appointing the interiors, the team initiated a critical two-and-a-half-year structural overhaul, led by AD100 architecture and design firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero. The Palisades property, constructed in the 1980s, was suffering from what Raj Brown calls “a true identity crisis—sort of French on the outside, tragic Americana in the backyard, Spanish at times.” Initially comprising seven small bedrooms, the overarching objective was to combine a number of the cramped spaces, creating the expansive and serene kitchen, for example, and adding curving edges to the otherwise boxy floor plan. “I wanted the house to feel really soft and have a warmth to it,” she adds of the architectural brief, which included the addition of circular tray ceilings, arched doorways, and curved millwork and marble.
With that primed canvas in place, Hunter and Raj Brown introduced a transportive aesthetic that the designer endearingly calls “Paris grandma.” In the abode, that translates into a parade of plush, nobby textiles from the likes of Pierre Frey and Nobilis, moody wall colors and custom murals, and bold stone and graphic-tile surfaces. Alongside custom pieces designed by Hunter, various items Raj Brown handpicked at the Paris Flea were expertly laced into the plan: a Carlo Scarpa chandelier for the dining room, a pair of 1950s Stilnovo sconces in the entry, an L-shaped club room sofa. Add to that a mix of design cues that she curated from a recent stay at the Saint James Paris, the enchanting hôtel particulier in the 16th arrondissement known for its eclectic, eye-catching interiors designed by Laura Gonzalez.
Ultimately, everyone agrees that Hunter successfully distilled Raj Brown’s voluminous inspiration, including a 12-page mood board, by tapping into the spirit of what she had in mind, amplifying certain elements while quieting others. “It’s a blend of all the things we cherish—old-world accents, unexpected tableau, references stolen from West Village town houses and Haussmann Paris,” Raj Brown observes of the collaboration. “He was able to take the references and direction, make it so much better, and tie it together in a beautiful way.”
For his part, Hunter—ever conscious of the clients’ young daughter, consuming professional lives, and love of entertaining—kept reminding himself of a simple, solitary notion. “We wanted it to have a certain storybook feel,” he recalls. “There was a magic to the house that we captured—and the word storybook is important there.”
