Playful Whimsy Meets Midcentury-Modern Style Inside This 1960s Los Angeles Home

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Sometimes the best client-designer relationships begin as friendships. Such was the case for creative craft influencer Amy Tangerine and architect Dan Brunn of DBA. “I met Dan’s sister back in the early 2000s at one of P. Diddy’s Fashion Week shows in New York,” recalls Amy. “Fast forward to years after I moved to LA, she brought Dan to one of my birthday parties. Since then, his aesthetic has been something I’ve admired and carefully watched evolve.” After years of mutual admiration and several how-do-we-work-together conversations, an opportunity finally presented itself in the form of Amy’s 1965 midcentury Los Angeles hilltop home.

“What I love most, is that the home doesn’t feel like a gallery,” Dan shares. “We never decided to make a particular wall behave in a certain manner, and because nothing was specifically planned out, this allowed Amy to have the best of both worlds.”

“When I saw the house, I was delighted and honored to be working on it,” explains Los Angeles–based architect Dan Brunn, who is known for his head-turning commercial and residential work that often causes instant double takes thanks to his clever approach to form and modernity. “When we started the job, we walked the spaces, and it was really just about understanding how Amy and her family live,” he states. “My intent was to make a very functional home, something that the family can feel relaxed in, so that it worked for them and not vice versa.”

Since the existing home was already a fully formed architectural expression, the team studied the original structure carefully. In the end, the focus became honoring what was there, while also combining DBA’s distinct design language alongside Amy’s unique point of view. “I loved how the home had these inner atriums,” shares the architect. “It set it apart from so many other houses, and I was intrigued with how to best capture that. We knew that we would update the bathrooms, so I wanted to realize a way to really enrich the space.” Using the existing atrium, Dan and his team added a new shower, which has a sliding glass door that, when opened, can transport the shower virtually outdoors. “It’s a truly unique feature in the home and something signature to Los Angeles living,” Dan notes.