Never Getting Older: Retro-Inspired Mod in Hollywood

Photography courtesy of Essential Home

It’s said that “the house is the mirror of the soul.” If this sentiment is true, it’s natural that a man who’s achieved fame and wealth mixing music would be drawn to a house that’s a hodgepodge of architectural styles. The home that Alex Pall—half of the Grammy-winning DJ duo the Chainsmokers—bought two years ago was built in the 1930s. Then, in the 1980s and ’90s, renovations were made to the house, and this added a dash of industrial edge.

The mashup appealed to Pall, and when it came to outfitting the Hollywood Hills home, he sought professional help from designer Peti Lau. So the magic happened: a designer capitalized on her rock-star client’s open mind— and art collection—and dialed the decor’s energy to the top.

The Monocles sideboard by Essential Home was inspired by James Bond and built from solid walnut wood accented by gold-plated brass front doors that feature a protruding circular design. Interior designer Peti Lau and Alex Pall of the Chainsmokers agreed it was the perfect place to display Pall’s Grammy Award.

Lau is an award-winning international interior designer based in New York City. She has worked with top interior design firms, and her work has been featured in multiple magazines, including NYC&G (New York Cottages and Gardens), where she was profiled as a Rising Star and as Innovation Designer 2016.

A Chinese-Vietnamese American born in Israel, Lau has developed a signature style she coined Aristo- Freak. She expresses her worldly inspirations with eclectic colors, patterns, and textures to create romance and moods in all of her spaces. AristoFreak emerged from Lau’s early career in Thailand, Mauritius, and Europe through her adventures as an expatriate, influenced by her love of art, travel, and lifestyle. The style further evolved through the ideology of old-world charms adapted for modern living.

Pall had already installed nature-themed wallpaper and added an orange-velvet couch to the family room when Lau began her work.

“The house had this built-in eclecticism,” says Lau, whose own influences might be similarly characterized.

“It felt appropriate to approach each interior space as its own unique environment.” She brashly mixed decades and colors and incorporated Pall’s growing contemporary art collection, an approach that miraculously holds each room together.

Lau’s AristoFreak style is influenced by her early career in Thailand, Mauritius, and Europe and her love of art, travel, and cultures around the world. This shows through her use of eclectic colors and patterns, old-world accessories, and diverse textures.

She continued the interior jungle theme, as she called it, with a natural-fiber coffee table that evokes dried versions of the leaves on the wall, along with leopard- and tribal-print pillows. The orange, green, and blue palette of the painting by Hassan Hajjaj (the Andy Warhol of Morocco, says Lau) recurs in trippy throw pillows from Silken Favours and the vintage Turkish rug laid over a larger jute rug. “A classic antique rug is a nice way to stabilize all the stuff that’s going on,” she adds.

The house had this built-in eclecticism. It felt appropriate to approach each interior space as its own unique environment.

A very unique detail of this living room is the furniture—a sideboard from Essential Home brand in particular. Inspired by the 007 films, Monocles is a sideboard built entirely out of solid walnut wood, accented by its gold-plated brass front doors that feature a protruding circular design. These circles are then engraved into the back and sides of the unit, giving it an extreme character and high-end look. It is a perfect furniture piece for retro lovers or midcentury admirers, given the knurling knobs on the drawers and the tapered legs. “The midcentury sabot legs and the brass circle scale just worked so perfectly with the natural stone floor and was a perfect place for that piece,” says Lau. “Great spot to showcase the Grammy!”

Floor-to-ceiling windows and unique framing bring the Hollywood Hills inside this master bedroom.

Essential Home is an innovative midcentury modern furniture brand that takes important historical and cinematographic references from the 1930s and 1960s and turns them into unique furnishing pieces. What started out as simply Essentials in 2015, a furniture collection by the midcentury lighting brand Delight- FULL, quickly grew to be one of the most elegant representations of midcentury modern design, eventually becoming the new brand Essential Home.

Lau has developed a signature style she coined AristoFreak. She expresses her worldly inspirations with eclectic colors, patterns, and textures to create romance and moods in all of her spaces.

Soon we understood that this collection had a life of its own. Essential Home’s eclectic style inspired us to create more and more,” says Essential Home CEO Cláudio Vasconcelos. Essential Home is currently based in Porto, Portugal, but its alluring designs are sold in the most significant interior design centers around the world, including London, Paris, and New York.

Midcentury-inspired furnishings such as those by Essential Home lend a distinct Hollywood vibe throughout the home.

To learn more or to shop Essential Home’s collection of midcentury-inspired furniture, visit EssentialHome.eu.