Inside William Hefner's Montecito Family Estate

So what was really important to us when we were designing the house as I mentioned before is to have this inside outside connection. So this area we have a gym and it is centered on the layout of the pool. From the bedroom these French doors lead out to a sitting area at the end of the vegetable garden so you have your own private sitting area here as well. So to begin with we were blessed with this fabulous one-acre site with seven big native oak trees that are hundreds of years old. What we wanted to do was to create a compound like atmosphere so that there's separate areas on the site where you can go and enjoy the landscape the views and have privacy. And different elements in this compound are built of different materials. This building's built of wood both inside and outside cedar that's stained and we're doing that to contrast and create interest for the other building. So this area was designed to be kind of the covered porch for the pool area. So people who want to be outside can be out here on the lounges. People want to be inside we can tuck the doors back into the wall and you can enjoy this area and the view. So this also functions as a sitting room when it's a guest house. So you have this and there are two bedrooms off of this area. So what we wanted to do inside this building was to have wood inside. The buildings that are wood outside I thought it's important to have wood. We didn't want to just have drywall or paint. So additionally we vaulted the ceilings. This room is just sort of the end of the line so it's the most private space on the property and you've got this great view of the mountains but also all this landscaped area. All the lighting in the house we did with vintage lighting. We felt by having contemporary lighting it would date the at some point. So it was important to search out. We sort of exhaustively searched for light fixtures that would be of character but something would be timeless. All the windows and doors in the house are steel frame and they were custom made for this project. We designed them and picked the hardware and they keep the profiles thin so they don't block the view. And then because I hate to see screens on projects like we put the screens in pockets in the wall so you don't have to see them when you're not using them. But they draw all the way across to close off the opening and then for privacy we also had shutters that come through out of the opening. So and these allow for ventilation if the doors open then you have privacy that you have ventilation that way. But when you don't want to see them you don't see them at all. And in the sitting room we have a big skylight. It actually is operable like you can it's automated so you push a button and the panels operate. But it balances the light because I felt it's so bright outside that you need more light and ventilation in here. Also in this room if we've got a family visiting or something we've got a separate bunk room for kids which is back in here. It's kind of the world's smallest bedroom for us but it's kind of all you need. It's got two bunks and a trundle underneath so you can get three kids in here. But it's also when you don't want to use it that way you can just close it off and not see it. So in the bathroom which is devoted to guests but also you can use it from the pool. So we have the same shutter system for privacy but we set it up like a Japanese bath so you can bathe outside the tub and then hop in when you're clean and soak. Regarding materials throughout this house inside and outside we're using Indiana limestone and it's been brushed and hammered a bit so it's not slippery but it runs kind of everywhere like it's this whole building is that way and this same material goes and you'll see it in the main house as well. And then the cabin is mahogany and all the walls are the cedar throughout. And as far as the stone we decided to not use any tile in the house because I also feel like sometimes that dates projects. So this is called sea pearl which is a kind of a celadon-ish color stone that we love and we use that for countertop. And then for the loo we wanted to figure out a way to create privacy if a lot of people are kids a bunch of kids are here for a swim party so your your head sort of popped up but you have privacy. All right so we've seen one building and then I'm going to take you through the grounds and the garden of the house. Part of the garden concept was we live in Los Angeles where things you don't have the luxury of this kind of space so the idea was to really make the most of the garden. Then when you come up here you have this sense of living in a garden and you'll see some of the areas we created to enjoy it. So this area we have a gym that we built and it is centered on the layout of the pool so you see it at the end of the pool from the house and it's its own area you can come out here early in the morning and turn on the tv and work out and you don't disturb anybody. And for this building in order to create some variety and interest we made this out of stone and part of the idea was the stone building feel like they're maybe older than the other buildings on the site and so this is stone that we quarried here at the site when we dug the pool we dug the foundations we had piles of stone here like bigger than the buildings. We gave away stone but we used it for this building site walls and a couple other buildings but what's nice about it is you see the wood buildings and the stone buildings all together it feels like a composition like it wasn't built all at one time. So inside the gym we used unfinished cedar in here because it seemed like a workout room and it should feel a little less refined than the inside the house and you'll see as we get further into it there was sort of a logical reason why we did that. But again the open ceiling we have a ceiling fan to keep things cool and so the gym is often used lots of people like in the family use it like our kids use it we use it the nice thing is you can come out here any time of day it's a warm room you have this great view from here. Additionally beyond working out like we created this space back here for a sauna and sort of powder room and we use this regularly like I like to be in here like almost every day and it's an infrared sauna with conventional heating elements so it's hybrid that way and then outside this door we have an outdoor shower that's totally private so you can pop out here to cool off or to take a shower after you do that and you're under the shade of these fabulous trees. Also in this area of the site we have a basketball court and my son's been an avid basketball player since he's been like five so it gets regular use and the amazing thing about it is under these like 200 year old oak trees so it's shady at good times of the day. Also running through this area we have a pathway that we installed around the whole perimeter of the site and the idea was when our son was young that he could ride his bike around it he could run he could do whatever he's going to do later on we had some electric go-karts that we ran around it and it sort of runs all the way through this back but down the sides across the driveway and through here so it was a really fun thing to do on the weekends we came up. As I mentioned before one of the most fun parts of doing this project was the garden we had an acre of land to work with with seven oak trees that according to the arborist are 150 to 300 years old on the property so it was about how to enjoy the site to the maximum with death effects so the other part about the garden design is I didn't want to make it look too designed I feel like as an architect often the gardens we do you need to make it look design that's what people want but I want it to feel somewhat accidental so the only trees we planted on the site aside from some fruit trees are more native oaks so we have seven of these native oak trees here that are grand and we planted a half dozen other oaks in this area just because we felt like don't mix it and stay with the native vegetation so in the way the landscape is divided there's landscape that surrounds the pool here on the south side there's a grand lawn that connects an outdoor fireplace at the end with an outdoor sitting area right by us here this area is the last spot on the property to have light in the evening so it's a great spot to sit for a sundowner and then over on this strip that's adjacent to this bedroom wing on the right there's a whole cottage kitchen garden as well let me show you part of the idea with these zones in the garden is I found that property feels like more it feels bigger when you can't see the whole thing from everywhere right like so back in here there's a meandering path that connects from that terrace at the end of the lawn you come up here there's a bench to enjoy the shade of this oak tree and this is on access with the vegetable garden and when you're in the vegetable garden it's only about that you don't see the rest of the house and we have two cream which is the plant which borders our pathway we have raised beds that we have at the moment lettuces tomatoes herbs and squash that we're starting to grow we also have citrus trees up here and at the end we have figs as well and as you walk through it you start to connect and you get views of the pool area you start to pick up filtered views of the main house so then you kind of understand the whole thing so down here we have a little fountain that's surrounded by four fig trees which are happy and doing really well and from here this is on access with a view of the pool house that you see and the idea of having a fountain here was the sitting area outside the primary bedroom oftentimes we'll come out and read the sunday paper and it's a really nice counterpoint to everything so it's beautiful here right now it's springtime i'm looking around the garden and i just think this is one of the best gardens that we at the studio have done besides the big oak trees that were here nothing was here like wood bald so all this planting the retaining walls outdoor seating areas we did i'm so happy with how beautiful it is but how practical it is like we use all these outdoor areas all the time on a regular basis so i'm very happy about it so this pool area the pool itself is 22 by 60 feet long and i'm a lap swimmer i love to swim laps so when we're here i always am swimming first thing in the morning but i love the way it turned out it's got the limestone coping around it and we did a color for the pool plaster we took the limestone and had the pool guy match the plaster color so it gives it this great sort of greenish blue color which i love and it goes well with the siding and the interior finishes and also all the plants i found in this area you can't do a really blue pool or it looks fake so you need green in it with this landscaping to look right so this pond that we did is full of water lilies at the moment and it's on axis with the front door so when you come in the front it's wonderful to have guests come immediately out to the fountain and then we sit outside here and the fountain creates this wonderful bubbly sound that runs background for any other sort of neighborhood noises and then behind us here is outdoor fireplace and this is a great sitting area for in the evenings winter or summer really because in the summer it gets kind of chilly fog rolls in and that so we use the same native stone for it and we raise it this area is a wonderful sitting area so the fountain not only is it a lot of people's favorite but it's also sparky's favorite it's his drinking fountain and he hasn't perished yet but it's a great counterpoint to this sitting area which is immediately off the kitchen and the great room so we have outdoor dining we have some lounge seating and now we have barbecue and pizza oven with storage for both of them the barbecue takes wood as well it's great for outdoor entertaining and we've got a friend who makes great pizzas so they often come here and stoke up the fun so what was really important to us when we were designing the house as i mentioned before is to have this inside outside connection so we installed this 30 foot wide sliding door that pockets all the way back out of the way that allows you to get from the living spaces to this entertaining and barbecue space and this building is all stone like the gym at the end that i showed you so once you come into the inside of the building stone outside inside we have a hand trawled plaster on the wall with wood ceilings the cabinets are bleached mahogany and the countertops are french marble we use this area all the time it's very serviceable see the island is big we have dining area and living all together in one space we did this steel and glass hood because it's a big room and i felt like we needed scale to the hood we didn't want like a puny hood above there so we did that and it's lit from within and very pretty feature at night it's almost like a light fixture and then because i really dislike my mommy dearest things i hate upper cabinets in kitchen so we decided to devote a room to dishes and food pantry so all the dishes in the house were kept here and it's plenty convenient enough and then sort of dry foods as well so it's a simple area to go to everything we even have bars set up here so it's kind of an everything room and on the opposite side we have a powder room and these cabinets one side's refrigeration freezer and the other is appliances and all the things you don't want to see out so and this is the powder room we use this marble that we found at the marble yard there was one slab of this material kind of back in a corner all by itself and we said what is that material she said i don't know it's been here forever we said okay we'll take it but it's a fabulous green stone with all these markings we made the sink integral out of the same stone and with the unmarked brass together the walls in here are wood because the exterior of this piece of the house is wood so been trying to stay true to that principle and so here is the dining area so this table we designed custom we wanted a particular profile and color to it at the moment we're doing a national park project so we've got all these postcards from every national park in the country but we often use this table multitask where it ends up being homework and projects and the rest and eating and then because i felt like there'd be too many chairs we have a big leather bench for this side and then it flows into the living space which is about big comfortable furniture these are vintage 60s chairs the lights in here are scandinavian from the 50s which we found sort of one by one in various places in europe to assemble three so a cool neat feature that we did here because i didn't want to come here for the weekend and see a television out especially when kids are younger i feel like if you have a black tv there they just want it on so the idea was where do you put tv didn't want to put above the fireplace didn't want to put over there and the thought was is to sit in your best seats which are the sofa looking toward the garden so what we came up with was i found people in london who could make a lift that could come up out of the floor we designed the space in the crawl space to accommodate the tv and so it pops up here and it's the perfect solution because most people are so impressed they come over they go oh we love that you don't have a tv and we said well we kind do but it's a great set what he did is he took two tv lifts because you can buy a tv list that'll pop up out of a counter top but that would only take it to floor level so he sort of joined two lifts so one comes up to the floor and then that second one picks up and picks the whole assembly up and above so you can watch this is the entry hall for us and it's really in my mind like a breezeway because it's sort of between two stone buildings so we have the stone on both the walls and you feel like it's a space that was filled in and this wood ceiling is lower than the rest of them so it's like maybe it didn't have windows in before and out here you have the motor court so this is where people arrive there's lots of parking and we put in these four olive trees along this side for some filtering for sunlight and privacy from the street and then we have a gravel driveway i've always thought that when you're somewhere and you come off the street onto a gravel drive and drive there's just something very peaceful about it so we wanted to do that when we have an event you can get up to 12 cars in here and it's surrounded by these big oak trees and we had some planting that keep it private from the street on this side all these walls here were built with stone that we found on the site as well and we still gave stone away and the garage so in the garage i keep a couple older cars i love the design of porsches and so i've got a 1960 porsche roadster convertible and then 1998 which was the last year they made the air cooled models both that i drive regularly it's a great place around here to drive them but they're like artwork to me so in this end at the motor court this pathway i mentioned before that runs around the connects through here it comes into this end and then in kind of the idea of use every part of the cow or whatever that way like we really tried to use this so this has a rope swing that you can the kids play on from this end of the yard and so when you enter the home you come through here this breezeway that i spoke about before and then you're on axis with the fountain so you come out to here and you can walk straight through and you have access to the patio outdoor fireplace and view and this from from this end this is a game room we've made so this has had a pool table here before but it didn't get a lot of use at the moment we have ping pong and this an area to hang out in here this is a desk area that we set up during covid still gets regular use but we have a fireplace in here and it's a great place to hang out later in the day throughout these this area we have these steel doors through here which basically create sound privacy when people are using that but i liked it because i like these omfila ideas of um into french buildings where you so all on the perimeter you have these openings and then as you come down the hallway to the bedrooms there's another breezeway piece that connects one of the stone buildings to this bedroom wing which is also built out of wood like the other ones before so then this is the hallway it takes you by a couple of children's bedrooms so this is the entrance to the primary bedroom in this hallway we over time assembled from a couple different places these matching pendant lamps from the late 1800s that are kind of cast glass and as you come back into suite we have a series of these sort of slot windows that bring in light but are narrow enough that make it private and then this is the bathroom which the whole idea was to feel like you're outside here so you have this giant window and a private view but you feel every day kind of like you're showering outside in here we have mahogany cabinets and the same indiana buff limestone i talked about that we used throughout and tub so coming into the bedroom this particular room we designed to have some volume it's not a huge room but the volume just makes it feel airier and lighter we have great views from here of kind of the other buildings in the compound like the pool house across the way the furniture we did custom the nightstand and the wall hung cabinet on the left this fireplace is the same site stone that we used everywhere really tried to limit the number of materials in now so their oak floors their limestone on the flooring in and out and then this is the site santa barbara sandstone which would be mined on the on site and then from the bedroom these french doors lead out to a sitting area at the end of the vegetable garden so you have your own private sitting area here as well i want to thank luxury home show for allowing me to tour you through our house if you want more information about us you can look it up at williamhefner.com also if you enjoyed this episode you're going to love the next one thank you so much hey luxury home show my name is kashani perera welcome to this beautiful home i designed in beverly hills can't wait to show you around the house is supposed to have a modern moroccan vibe and so we have little touches of morocco modern mediterranean throughout