This article originally appeared in the December 2014 issue of ELLE DECOR. For more stories from our archive, subscribe to ELLE DECOR All Access.
Rozae Nichols has an obsession with pattern and color—the wilder and more evocative, the better. As the creative mind behind the fashion label Clover Canyon, known for its architectural silhouettes fashioned from bold, kaleidoscopic prints of her creation—top sellers at Neiman Marcus and on Net-a-Porter—Nichols clearly never got the memo that the little black dress reigns.
Which is what makes the Laurel Canyon home she shares with her husband, Ian Murrough, who co-owns a boutique ad agency, all the more extraordinary. A mere 1,000 square feet, with two bedrooms and a single bath, the house is a study in virtually monochromatic, pared-down cool. Built in 1948 and dominated inside by the deep tones of redwood and brick, it is, Nichols says, «a visual reprieve» from a life spent collecting textiles to use as inspiration for her own riotous vision. «When so much of your work is spent delving into color and texture, you need a neutral palette to be able to think, to move on, to move up.» From time to time, she brings out the vivid fabrics she has amassed over the years and drapes them over the furniture to see if she can live with their energy. But in the end, she folds them and puts them away: «My mind just wants the rest.»
The couple has lived in the house for more than 20 years. The area in which it is nestled was ground zero for the 1970s West Coast rock scene, the enclave where Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, and Jim Morrison rode wailing guitars into the night. «You look out and you still feel it,» she says. «Up here, things really haven’t changed much.»
Nichols has spend her entire life in Los Angeles, and her home reflects the interwoven strands of the city’s artistic legacy. It is both organic and minimal, modern and timeless, with a Zen discipline. The feeling is part Richard Neutra, part Frank Lloyd Wright. The structure itself has fine proportions, and the view is spectacular, but with «none of the vulgarity and grandeur» of the usual Hollywood vistas, she notes. The couple own an array of beautiful furniture and objects, each carefully chosen and given space to breathe. «I am the kind of person who gives things away, who relinquishes them,» she says. «I like things to become simpler.»
The former owners had painted the redwood interior beige, «like a Yostemite camping retreat,» Nichols recalls, so after she and her husband bought the house, they sandblasted and wire-brushed it back to its original state. Because the reddish patina has grown darker each year through oxidation, they are conscious of lightening the place with pale grays and off-whites, though plenty of sunshine pours in through the massive windows to do the job naturally. A vintage lounge chair by George Mulhauser is covered in sheepskin, for contrast, and one wall is dominated by a Jason Meadows sculpture made of painted folded aluminum. In what is arguably the house’s perfect set piece, the dining area’s graceful Biedermeier chairs offset the strongly geometric Charlotte Perriand table. «I love the Biedermeier moment,» Nichols says. «It’s feminine, minimal, and rococo at the same time.»
A vegan who is passionate about animal rights and has the books of ethicist Pete Singer on her bedside table, Nichols keeps embellishments to a minimum, preferring ikebana, sculptural Japanese flower arrangements that straddle the line between art and gardening.
It is perhaps not surprising that the couple’s great inspirations include Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, with its select minimalist art in a barren landscape, and Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, the monolithic 1977 land-art project consisting of 400 stainless steel poles in the high desert of New Mexico. The couple first visited both sites on road trips nearly 15 years ago, but the imagery and the intention have stayed with them, continuing to inform the way they see their home—and live in it. «The modernity, the simplicity, the idea of a mindful oasis of beauty—that is something you internalize,» she says. «It changes you forever.»
Step Inside This Dreamy Midcentury House
Nichols doesn’t have to go far for her own small slice of uninterrupted serenity: An entire wall of sliding wood-framed doors opens to a deck that is nearly the size of the house, and a tranquil pool amid the aloes and succulents. «It’s sometimes hard to leave here to take the long ride downtown, where my studio is,» she says. «You look out, and what you see is perfect. Not perfect in the way some people think of the word, but perfect to me.»
