5 Design Ideas to Steal From Sam Raimi’s Windsor Smith-Designed Home
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The first design lesson inside this home reveals itself before you’ve made it past the foyer. From the front door, the view stretches through the dining room, out a pair of open French doors and across the lawn toward the mountains above Rustic Canyon.
The estate belongs to Sam Raimi, film director behind the Evil Dead franchise and the Tobey Maguire Spiderman trilogy, and was designed by Windsor Smith, who listing agent Mauricio Umansky of The Agency calls “one of the best interior designers on the planet.”
Across the home, Windsor Smith uses a handful of ideas that can translate well beyond an estate of this scale. Here are five worth borrowing.
1. Optimizing the Passage and Transitions
The foyer leads into the dining room, the dining room’s French doors lead out to the lawn, and the view is waiting for you before you’ve even put your keys down. “Right away, you see the views,” Umansky says.
Borrow it: Stand at your front door and notice where your eye travels farthest. Keep that path clear. If the doors along it face your best view, leave off the heavy drapes. And a botanical wallpaper above a painted chair rail is an easy way to get the mural effect.
2. Make the Kitchen the Room Everyone Lives In
“A lot of people love to live in the kitchen,” Umansky says. “So, this is a great kitchen to live in.” It’s built for it: white Shaker-style cabinetry with glass-front uppers, pale stone counters, a long center island with its own sink, a row of divided-light windows over the main sink and a trio of metal dome pendants.
Designed by architect Joseph Spierer, this Southern California sanctuary puts the kitchen at the center of the floor plan, seamlessly blending commercial-grade functionality with central courtyard living.
The kitchen opens to a breakfast room and a family room, where the traditional pieces do the talking: a gilded mirror over an antique wood chest, floral armchairs, a curved rust velvet sofa and a glass cocktail table on a sculptural gilt base, all facing a marble fireplace. French doors on both sides of the room keep it bright.
Borrow it: Put one antique or vintage piece in each room and pair it with newer, softer upholstery. Velvet up against old wood makes a room look like it was pulled together over years, even if you did it in a weekend.
3. Let One Room Go Dark
If the rest of the house is light and airy, the office is its opposite. Walls, trim, bookshelves, and ceiling are all painted the same deep blue-green, with brass picture lights over the shelves, grille-front cabinets and a coffered ceiling. There’s a fireplace here, too, one of five on the property.
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“It feels like kind of like old Hollywood,” Umansky says. “I would be so inspired working here.”
Borrow it: Choose one small room, like a study, den or powder room, and paint everything one dark color, trim included. The trick is committing. Leave the trim white and the room just looks dim. Paint all of it and it starts to feel like a jewel box.
4. Give the Primary Suite a Room of Its Own
Upstairs, the primary bedroom is all soft neutrals under a steep, pitched ceiling. There’s an upholstered headboard and a bench tucked under the window, plus linen drapes. Built-in shelves frame a doorway into a separate sitting room, which has a fireplace of its own. It overlooks the backyard.
Then there are the bathrooms, plural. “Two primary bathrooms, so you have the his and the hers,” Umansky says, each with its own closet. His verdict: “Saves a lot of marriages.”
Borrow it: No sitting room? Carve out a reading corner by the window with a chair, a small table and a lamp. Suddenly your bedroom is a place you’d happily spend a Sunday afternoon awake.
5. Treat the Backyard Like a Second House
Out back, the yard could almost pass for a separate property. There’s a two-story guest house in brick and white clapboard, with a living room on the ground floor and a bedroom upstairs that opens onto a little balcony. Attached to it is an outdoor kitchen with a grill and a pizza oven.
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Beyond the lawn is what Umansky calls “the real swimmer’s pool,” along with a spa. According to the listing, there are apple, lemon and avocado trees around the property, too. The guest house is built from the same brick as the main house, which is why the whole yard looks like it was part of the plan from day one.
Borrow it: When you add anything outdoors, whether a pergola, a shed or a fire pit, repeat a material from the house. That one repeat is what makes the yard and the house look like they belong together.
