Inside the Los Angeles Home of Accessory Designer Tyler Ellis

“It's like a chateau. We came in and were like, ‘Oh, I feel like I'm in Europe,' which is what I wanted, to create a little piece of Europe, but we're still in the center of L.A. My husband and I walked out and looked at each other like, 'This is it.' The interior details are incredible. We were so lucky, we really didn't have to do much to the existing home aside from paint. It was all painted this one grey-green color and we just put white pretty much in every room. It was the cypress trees that initially drew us to the property, and then once we walked in, we were like, ‘this is so unique, so special.’ Every house that's being built is a spec home nowadays. They don't take time to really put in the details because obviously they're going to flip it. So, you don't get the beautiful marble—we have this gorgeous marble staircase. This was a home that was built by a couple who wanted to live here, so you get the extra details that people who are going to live in the house put into it.”

“My husband and I met in New York—I'm from L.A. originally. I was living in New York, we met, we got married in New York and then we decided, funnily enough, the weather was—we were over it. We were in Cabo one year and he was like, 'Oh my god, would you ever want to move to L.A.?' And I was like, ‘Yes,100 percent.’ So, we ended up renting out here and then started the process of looking for homes.We looked at many, many houses, and how we found this one originally was Trulia, the app. We could see the overview and it had all these cypress trees, which I love. It didn't hit what we were looking for. It was only a three-bedroom at the time and we at least wanted a four, but I saw these cypress trees, so I was like, ‘let's just go see it.’

“I worked with The Archers, who is an interior design firm. Richard Petit, I've worked with him since I was 18, so he knows me very well. We have a very different aesthetic of what we love personally, which is kind of funny, but I think it pushed him to be extra creative. Obviously it's my home, but I think this is one of his best projects because it's so different from what he typically does, if that makes sense. I worked with him on all the interiors. I wanted to make it feel like a Parisian apartment. It's a very sophisticated, serious home on the outside, and we wanted to give it character, youth, pops of color on the inside. There's a lot of personality in this home.”

“There’s a photograph of my father that we had in our New York apartment. We just love that picture of him. Then, we had a photographer friend Brian Bowen Smith over in our apartment and walking by he was like, 'Is that a Richard Avedon?' And I was like, 'What?' and he was like 'The photo of your father.' So, we took it off the wall and it said, 'Dear Perry, Love, Richard.' So, it turns out it was a Richard Avedon photo. I had absolutely no idea because my father passed away when I was 18 months old, so I never knew him and never got to know that story. Now that photo sits at the base of the staircase, so we look at it every morning. I get to say hi to my dad. But, we were just blown away, like that is a Richard Avedon."

“This exploding cabinet is one of my favorite pieces. It's awesome. We walked into Carpenters Workshop Gallery and both Ben and I were like, 'Oh my god, this is so incredible.' We had a custom one made in bronze. Then it arrived, and we were like, 'Oh my god, how are we going to get it in the house?' It's so heavy. No one could carry it up the stairs. So, we had to have a crane come and lift it. They had to take the doors off of the guest room and the second-floor balcony, and they had to crane it through there, and then create this rolling board to put it where it lives. So, that thing is not going anywhere.”

"[Our favorite room is] I would say what we call the 'brandy' library, that teal blue room. I absolutely love it. The mix of colors, the gold leaf Yves Klein table on top of the rug that Richard, my interior decorator, designed specifically for that room. The room in general was inspired by the peacock. We love the peacock. So, if you look at the screen that's in front of the fireplace—that resembles the peacock feather tail—there's a Jeff Koons pink swan in there. In L.A., it's 75 and sunny 90 percent of the year, but you want to go in there, turn the fireplace on, and kind of escape to somewhere in Europe. That's what I love about that room and how well all of the colors play together. That rug really ties everything in.”

“The dining room table we made custom and the marble in it has the peacock colors in it, as well, which is cool. Then, the rest of the house is all white.”

“I guess our bedroom is most neutral of all because it's kind of calming. We didn't want too much excitement going on in there, but all the other rooms that are downstairs, they have at least some type of unexpected pop to give it a little fun. Happiness, you know what I mean?”

“So, that is by Paola Pivi. She's an Italian artist and she loves polar bears and Alaska. It's a life-size polar bear and she's made of pink feathers. We were in Tokyo at a gallery and we saw, not that exact one, but we saw they had a white one hanging. Our friend works with one of the galleries and she connected us with them, and they had this one available, which was actually in a museum in Alaska for a year, and now she lives at the base of our stairs and protects us.”

“A lot of the pieces that I personally purchased are from 1stDibs. I love 1stDibs. It's very well curated. You know you're getting what you're buying, which is nice. And again, we wanted unique pieces. It's a mix of vintage, our past furniture, and new pieces. We bought some stuff that we recovered, which has been great. Even our interior decorators purchase a lot from 1stDibs. We found that Frederik Molenschot chandelier at Carpenters Workshop Gallery.”

“I like to create unique pieces and that's what we wanted to do with this home. I find there are so many houses that all look exactly the same. We looked at many of them: they're traditional, beautiful homes, but you could walk in and I could take myself on a tour because I already know the layouts. Like with my bags, I like to create unique pieces. I do a lot of bespoke work with clients, which I love. So, that's kind of what we wanted to do with the home, find pieces that you wouldn’t typically see anywhere else. Then, what I love about our interior decorator is he does such a great job of mixing the new, the vintage, recovering, and making it vibe super well together.”

“The living room used to be facing inward toward a cabinet where the TV was. The fireplace was on the back wall and then you had windows. We wanted to look at our backyard. So, we changed the layout of the room, so now the couches all face out, looking at the window. We put the Daniel Arsham above the fireplace. We didn't want the TVs visible in any rooms, so we put a projector in and a screen drops down. Otherwise, we have it up, so it looks like there's no TV in the room, and you have a beautiful view of the backyard.”

“We definitely had a budget. What we tried to do is for every room pick at least one wow piece and then you can kind of—it's like when you get dressed, right? You don't need to get all in CHANEL couture. You can mix a Zara top with a great bag and your CHANEL shoes, so that's what we like to do. Like go for the Daniel Arsham and then find some cool stuff on 1stDibs or some vintage sites. We had some really nice vintage stuff we recovered. That's an interesting way to rework something that we had that wouldn't have worked in this house. You recover it and there you go, you've got a whole new couch.”