Rebecca Jezek keeps her dresser, a glass-topped Danish piece crowned with Calla lilies and a bowl of clementines, in the kitchen. “It’s where the only closet in the house is located,” she says, “so the kitchen also serves as a dressing room. Somehow, it works.”
This sort of malleability — one space doubling as another; one piece standing in for the next — is a hallmark of the designer’s Los Angeles home. Its long main room, flanked on either end by the kitchen and bedroom, is where Jezek unwinds with a book at the end of a long day. It’s also where she works, as the head of an eponymous interior design firm launched in 2008. Here, her choices cater to a need for fluidity and flexibility. In place of bookshelves, there’s a “library table,” stationed in a corner and heavily laden with titles in neat, sturdy stacks. There is no sofa, but a semicircle of chairs, drenched in sun and poised to welcome visitors, provides a moveable, ultra-efficient substitute. “I work here, I live here, I entertain here, I relax here,” the designer says. “The architecture and the layout are conducive to all of that.”
Jezek, an LA native, came upon the space as the result of a happy confluence of timing and luck. “The owners never advertise it,” she says. A former guest house, “it’s always rented by word of mouth, and has been inherited over the years by a bunch of acquaintances.” Jezek’s predecessor happened to be a friend — and when that friend followed a job to New York, the designer stepped in to fill her place. The owners, who live elsewhere on the property, in a home separated from Jezek’s by a thick barrier of plumbago, welcomed her warmly. “They said, we have two requirements for living here: one, we have to like you and two, we want you to be happy here,” she remembers.
Since then, she’s applied guiding tenets of her design practice — a propensity for warmth, an appreciation for architecture, and a deep respect for the classics — to the house, whose French doors and concrete flooring provided a bright, blank canvas. In many ways, it’s a standing tribute to what’s shaped her: from her own father, an architect influenced by Bauhaus and Dieter Rams (and for whose commercial interior architecture firm Jezek worked as a teenager); to various Czech porcelain artists; to the great designers of Cassina, including Bellini, Magistretti, and Corbusier.
Making a home here has bestowed an added layer of meaning to her work, too. “I’m lucky enough to know what it’s like to live in a really beautiful space that is a big source of joy in my life,” Jezek says. “Providing that to other people is sincerely the best part of the job.”
Jezek decided against a sofa in her living area, choosing three chairs — two Mies Van der Rohe and one Brazilian vintage leather piece — to populate the space instead. “I needed furniture that was flexible and portable for when clients come over, so we can gather around my desk,” she says.
The structure itself has taken various shapes over the years; before becoming a house, it served as a covered rec area with a basketball court. “At one point, this unit had a back wall and a roof, like a pergola, and everything else was open,” Jezek says. “The owner, who bought the house in the early 80s, drywalled it, added a bedroom with doors, and then sealed off the face and sides with windows and French doors.” The court’s original green is still visible in house’s concrete floors. “The owner stained and sealed them with a really funky finish, and it turned out beautifully. It almost looks like marble.”
Jezek’s library table plays host to a wide selection of titles. The bench, by Milan architect Massimiliano Locatelli, features an adjustable panel that transforms the piece into a chair.
A cardboard image of Jezek’s father sits alongside her books. “When he was applying to architecture firms in the late 70s, it was part of his portfolio,” she explains. “I worked for him in high school and after college for a bit. I was raised around design from the very beginning.”
Aside from the bathroom, the bedroom is the only room in the house with doors. Inside, sits a bed frame that Jezek’s father built 30 years ago. Functional and classic, it includes a headboard, two side tables, and a platform with storage underneath.
Bedside adornments include fresh flowers, an Artemide lamp, and artwork by Czech painter Brychta.
Jezek helps care for the owners’ four chickens, Lulu, Zelda, Lucy, and Alice, pictured here at the entrance of her home. “To get here, you walk through the massive garden that separates my house from the owners’,” she says. “Then there’s this huge plumbago bush that acts as a sort of fence, and that’s where you walk in. It’s very tranquil over here.”
“I keep them open as much as possible,” Jezek says of her wall of French doors. “I don’t have AC in the summertime, but thanks to the roof vents, the concrete floors, and the doors, it’s manageable.”
The designer’s Danish dresser finds a home in the kitchen. Though there’s a small dining table nearby, Jezek does most of her dining outdoors, at a large wooden table that seats 25.
A perk of having chickens on the property: fresh eggs. “Right now, three of them are laying. The fourth never lays,” Jezek says. “She’s cute, but she really doesn’t do a thing to contribute.”
Jezek’s love of beautifully designed objects is evident at every turn. Case in point: a double dose of marble in the kitchen.
“This is where I chill,” says Jezek. “Unless I’m working or in my bed, this is where I hang out.”
A flea market find sits atop a makeshift pedestal of stacked white cubes, which were used in a previous location as low-lying bookshelves.
A 60s Kartell side table holds a favorite candle and an essay by Japanese novelist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki.
This vintage wooden chair has become Jezek’s preferred place to read. “I like to sit here and look out at the chickens in the garden. It’s my weekend chair.”
“Small things that are designed impeccably are really rewarding to have around,” Jezek says. “These objects on the porcelain plate are from Alessi. The chrome one is an incense holder; the gold one is just an object. I like the way it looks. Its function has yet to be revealed to me, but that doesn’t matter.”
Jezek’s ceramics collection reflects a passion for Czech porcelain (as pictured here). It also includes pieces made by her mother, a ceramic artist who once worked for Peter Shire.
A treasured piece by Czech cubist Pavel Janák.
Assorted curiosities, including a Riart/Bigas calendar, line the designer’s desk.
Zelda sashays across the stained concrete floors. “The floor is my favorite part of the house,” Jezek says. “The owner didn’t mean for it to look this way, but that’s the greatest part. It was a fortuitous accident, which, as we all know, often turns out to be the best thing.”
Jezek entertains at home at least once a month. “The indoor-outdoor element allows for a lot,” she says. “And kids like it, too. They can play with the chickens, run around the patio, throw a ball, hang out. It’s not a big space, but it’s a space that’s conducive to all kinds of things.”
“It’s the best place I’ve ever lived,” Jezek says. “The friend I was lucky enough to inherit it from said the same thing. Another person who lived here met his wife here — he fell in love in this house. It really does have a beautiful energy. You can feel it. It’s got good vibes.”
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