Bold and Beautiful on Carolwood Drive

The January 2011 issue of Architectural Digest is out—the first edited by Margaret Russell—and it's a keeper.

The issue is getting lots of huzzahs on Curbed National, among other places, for Russell's fresh vision for what had become a terminally ossified design publication.

One of the feature stories is on a George Washington Smith–designed house (with sensitive additions by architect and G. W. Smith scholar Marc Appleton) on Carolwood Drive—the same one featured on the cover of real estate agent Jeffrey Hyland's book, The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills.

391 Carolwood Drive, Holmby Hills (photo copyright Appleton Architects).

Although the owners are unidentified in the AD story, it doesn't take Charlie Chan to snoop out that the house is owned by Bradley and Colleen Bell. Bradley Bell was the creator, with his father, William J. Bell, of the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, and also wrote many of the episodes himself. According to Wikipedia, it's "the most-watched soap in the world." In the Czech Republic, it's simply called Fabulous and Rich. Enough said?

While Hyland's book doesn't dwell on the interiors of this house, the Architectural Digest story, written by Joseph Giovannini and beautifully photographed by Erhard Pfeiffer, does. I noticed that the walls of the garden room—like the others, designed by the always inspiring Windsor Smith—are covered with silver wallpaper decorated with gouache murals by artist Scott Waterman.

Murals by Scott Waterman.

I've been a fan of Waterman's work since discovering it via the Mrs. Blandings blog several weeks ago. A couple of examples:




Waterman also does fine art, as in these examples:

Images courtesy of ScottWaterman.com.

As if that's not enough, it also turns out that the artist is an accomplished blogger whose blog, Corbu's Cave, I had visited several times previously without making the connection.

It's a small, circular world, full of wonderment.