STORY: LEILANI MARIE LABONG
CHAPTER 4
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PHOTOS: JOHN ELLIS
styling: SUNDAY HENDRIKSON
In this family home, if it’s all the rage, it gets all the stage.
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CARILLO
clockwise from top: the living room’s graphic highlights include a painting discovered at an art fair and a vintage chair reimagined with modern stripes. colorful wall art inspires Ciel and Canon carillo's masterpieces. the glinting wallpaper in the guest bath echoes the shine of an industrial sink. the kids— and their likenesses—await a german holiday spread.
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is refreshingly forthright about the trenddriven trappings in her family’s Long Beach home. Right off the bat, her unapologetic discourse focuses on the dining room, which is bedecked with a huge swath of an otomi-inspired gold wall covering by Flavor Paper. “Gold, brass—they’re just fads,” says Simone. “In five years, we’ll want to rip this paper right off the wall.” Her breeziness belies her bravado—after all, being an early adopter of passing fancies is not for the faint of heart. By definition, crazes are bold, sometimes even garish. As fashion industry insiders—Simone and her husband, David, own a clothing manufacturing company called Trend Request—the Carillos are quite cozy with the avant-garde. “We always say, ‘Let’s do whatever the Europeans are doing,’” says David. “You can’t go wrong if you take their lead. They’re always stylish.” Other gutsy standouts enlivening this 1923 Spanish colonial include an exhibition of moody, as David says, “nudie-girl” paintings in the master bedroom, subtly enhanced by a rather suggestive torpedo relic located in close proximity; a wood floor emblazoned with a pixelated black-and-white Moroccan pattern in the salon; and a shiny show kitchen made almost entirely of restaurant-grade stainless steel to indulge David’s inner Top Chef. Despite the sheer magnitude of metal in what could be considered the home’s unofficial man cave, the kitchen fails to feel sterile, mostly because of the steel countertop’s battle scars (burns from scorching-hot pans, nicks from butchering blades) and the largerthan-life portraits of the little Carillos, Ciel, 6, and Canon, 9. When David and Simone purchased the home in 2010, it was in great turnkey condition—that is, if you like spec-home chic. “It came with a lot of new cherrywood and granite surfaces,” explains David with a shudder. “Definitely not our style.” To avoid offending the granite-loving masses, Simone adds, “David’s mother liked the house much better when we first bought it. She thought it felt cozier. I suppose David and I prefer our surroundings to be a little more bare and uncomfortable.” It’s not a surprising statement. For instance, at the behest of the home’s oldest blueprints (the house has seen a few remodels in its day), the couple went so far as to return the master bedroom back to its original, and much smaller, size—thereby giving Ciel a place to call her own. The African mahogany trimming the doorways was also restored to its original glory. And the white oak plank floors were whitewashed four times to achieve a raw-wood look. “When people ask us if we’re ever going to finish the floors, we always feel strangely satisfied,” says David. Despite these drastic restoration measures—or perhaps because of them—the house is delightful and welcoming. Anchoring the tableau with heritage pieces—sourced with guidance from their friend, Steven Sarinana, co-owner of the local vintage furniture shop, Trebor/Nevets—also keeps the eclecticism from veering off the charts. In Ciel’s room, for instance, frames filled with kitschy crewelwork create a wall collage of truly punchy proportions, but the flamboyance is offset by elegant damask wallpaper and kid-
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Simone hung her collection of eyepopping crewelwork in daughter ciel's room. Below: Lily, the family fur ball, holds court in the candy-hued space.
Crazes are bold,
sometimes even Garish.
appropriate, Louis XV-inspired furnishings. The wooden chandelier in the dining room is hefty and organic—the yang, if you will, to the pretty golden yin. And when it comes to mantels, it doesn’t get more traditional than the ornately carved piece surrounding the living room hearth. Surprisingly, it’s made of hemp, but Saint Nick is hardly deterred by the herb: At Nikolaustag (a holiday tradition from Simone’s German roots), he surveys the shoes Canon and Ciel leave by the fireplace and replaces the scuffed old pairs with pumped-up kicks as a reward for staying off the naughty list. When it comes to Mom and Dad, however, the line between good and bad grows blurrier by the minute, especially when it comes to design. They shamelessly replicate ideas from other people’s property (their kitchen was inspired by a friend’s home in Mammoth). They trade shut-eye for late nights spent poring over magazines for inspiration. And Simone’s passing comment about waiting for carpeted walls to come back in vogue (the mirrored breakfast nook has a similar vibe) signals the need for some kind of rehab. “We’re like addicts,” says David, “and our drug is design.”
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