London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

A Bel Air House by Iconic L.A. Architect Paul R. Williams Gets a Modern Refresh

A Bel Air House by Iconic L.A. Architect Paul R. Williams Gets a Modern Refresh

Designer Ernest de la Torre marries the house’s 1934 Tudor style with a minimalist vibe.

The key to a lasting relationship, they say, is striking a perfect balance. In the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, designer Ernest de la Torre describes his latest project as a “great marriage” of sorts. He and Mark Rios of the architecture firm RIOS were tasked with marrying two opposing themes: the clean, modern sensibilities of their client and the vintage flourishes of her 1934 Tudor-style duplex, a design ­evocative of the English countryside by legendary Hollywood architect Paul R. Williams.

The ensuing 30,000-​square-foot renovation with new addition resulted in a measured study in contrasts: airy California cool tempered by organic textures and a historical collection of art and design.



“She really is a minimalist,” de la Torre says of his client, a film producer with homes in New York and L.A. For more than a decade, she and her husband, a former entertainment chairman, had been living at odds with their home’s elaborate crown moldings, wrought-iron staircase, and other old-world elements. They once considered moving, but found themselves unable to part with their scenic backyard views of lush treetops. Still very much in love with the location (notably right on top of the Bel-Air Country Club’s 17th hole), they ultimately decided to stay, but not without a major intervention.



A complete overhaul followed, with the demolition of half the duplex. In place of a detached apartment that had always felt oddly disjointed, Rios’s team built a seamlessly attached modern wing, designed for a couple focused on entertaining. The addition houses the informal spaces, including a family room that continues out to the pool deck through disappearing glass doors. Upstairs, a main-bedroom complex occupies the entire second floor with marble bathrooms and closets akin to luxury boutiques, and two lower levels cascade down the steep hillside, one for a seven-car garage and another for the home gym.



The client entrusted de la Torre to build upon the home’s collection of art and design. Having worked for her before, he came into the project with a clear understanding of her vision: “She likes her minimalism, but also rich history and art,” he says. In the more formal interiors of the original construction, where expansive sliding-glass walls have replaced French doors, the eclectic decor spans the work of contemporary Los Angeles artists to vintage pieces of European and Southeast Asian provenance. A flash of illuminated neon cuts through the moody watercolors of Mary Weatherford, mounted in the living room behind the plush Jean Royère Polar Bear sofa. Craggy geodes and quartz spheres sit in various corners for their feng shui properties.



De la Torre wanted to establish a distinctly West Coast mood for the home, leaning into more casual indoor-outdoor living while maintaining a level of elegance. Rather than silk rugs for the living and dining rooms, he opted for woven raffia by Edward Fields and Cogolin; along with the Vietnamese bamboo window treatments and rattan furniture that appear throughout the house, they are a nod to the client’s Malaysian heritage and a necessary organic element to temper the coolness of the new glass walls. “A little layer of texture,” he says, “makes modern not feel cold.”

In the formal dining room, the walls were laboriously treated with layers of deep mahogany plaster, then scored along the surface and finished with wax to resemble traditional Chinese lacquer. They were inspired by a pair of 18th-century Chinese Coromandel screens that de la Torre repurposed as doors for china cabinets.

Take a Tour of This Modernized Paul R. Williams House




Wanting to avoid an endless series of white from room to room, he applied the “compression-expansion” effects of alternating light and dark. The receding view through the dark dining room and white living room doorways frame the icy Stuart Haygarth chandelier in the foyer. There, in place of Williams’s original wrought-iron banister, the stairway curves around a sinuous panel of steel, patinated to exude the same rich warmth of the dining room walls.



For the couple, the entire project was a “compromise,” de la Torre says, “to build a modern space, but keep the original house that they had loved for more than 10 years.” Touches of the original architecture remain in the ornately carved limestone entryway and the decorative wall panels of the former Tudor library, now the study, lacquered in a lustrous Chinese red.

From the outside, Williams’s half-timbered, formerly redbrick Tudor-style facade is still visible beneath the layer of black and white paint that matches the modernist new addition. In this story of love, compromise, and rehabilitation, it was the process of give-and-take, of striking the perfect balance, that quite literally kept this household together.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×