Ryan Murphy might not be a name you immediately recognise, but you will have certainly encountered his work at some point in the last two decades. The tour-de-force of entertainment has penned, directed, and produced shows such as Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, The People vs OJ Simpson, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Hollywood, and plenty more.
How has the serial hitmaker and most powerful man in TV chosen to spend his syndication money? As revealed in a guest article for Architectural Digest, some of it has been found its way into quite the impressive LA abode. Bold. Vibrant. Refined. It doesn’t take long for you to realise that this is everything a family home should be and so much more.
“One day, it suddenly dawned on me that I wanted to live with less: less colour, less clutter, fewer things. An edited life.”
“Out of the blue came a call—do you want to look at a teardown of a house that is big enough for your growing family? “Is it a monastery?” I replied. “Because that’s what I want to live in now.””
Murphy purchased the property soon after and wasted no time converting it into a monastic refuge. Enlisting the services of designer extraordinaire Stephen Shadley, the renovation followed three rules of what Murphy dubbed “minimalist luxury”:
- Repeat, repeat, repeat.
“What this came to mean is find three materials you love and just keep using them. For the new house, we chose blindingly white chalk plaster walls (popular in old Spanish monasteries!), black and white Malibu tiles done in a modern geometric way, and dark tile and wood floors.” - Make it big.
“From Stephen I learned the great lesson of monumentalism, that grand gestures help focus and declutter a space. Everything in the house was done with this in mind. All of the brick fireplaces, for example, were put up and taken down at least three times to get the regal, walk-in effect we wanted. Huge plaster horse-trough fountains were designed for the front of the house, and they were so large and long we had to take out lap-pool permits from the city. But they are instantly grounding—calming, almost—as they loom large and give architectural order to the façade.” - Don’t use colour.
“This was my favourite, and perhaps the most difficult to achieve. All the repeated materials were ordered specifically in muted shades. After years of cleaning up Mattel toys and LEGOs, I kept saying I wanted to feel like I was living in a bowl of miso soup.”
Check out Ryan Murphy’s LA home below.
To read the original write-up about Ryan Murphy’s LA home over at Architectural Digest.
