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Lela Becker’s Pacific Palisades Home: A Midcentury House Tuned to Frogs, Parrots, and a Bubbling Creek

A 1955 Mario Corbett house in Pacific Palisades gains new windows and a finished second story while keeping its redwood structure, collected interiors, and creekside soundtrack.

By ThatPainter Team 18 October 2026
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Lela Becker’s Pacific Palisades house is a 1955 redwood-clad home by San Francisco–based modernist Mario Corbett. Its renovation added windows, modestly enlarged the footprint, and completed a second story without erasing the character that drew Becker’s family to the property. Inside, French Provençal, Scandinavian, and California modern references meet vintage furniture and handmade pieces. Outside, ferns, live oaks, a creek, frogs, parrots, a pool, and a firepit make the landscape part of the home’s daily soundtrack. Architectural Digest’s August 21, 2026 feature by Hannah Martin follows how the family and its design team made those elements work together.

A 1955 house found close to home

Becker, a fashion designer and cofounder of Mother, and her family had already been living nearby when the Pacific Palisades property came on the market in 2019. That proximity matters to the story: this was not a search for a generic “midcentury” look, but a chance to remain in a familiar landscape while taking on a house with a very specific identity.

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Mario Corbett, a modernist based in San Francisco, designed the original house in 1955. Jed Lind, who handled restoration and interior design, said the building looked “like a steamship.” The comparison captures its sculptural, horizontal presence and explains why the project focused first on recovering the structure’s character rather than replacing it with a new architectural language.

Becker describes the property’s atmosphere in similarly immediate terms: “Everything here is hidden until you get right up on it.” Rooms, paths, and plantings reveal themselves gradually, so the house is experienced as a sequence of discoveries instead of a single view from the street.

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Restoration first, expansion second

Lind’s brief was to restore the redwood-clad structure, update the interiors, and maintain what he called its soul. The work therefore combined repair with carefully limited growth.

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More connection to the wooded site

The renovation introduced additional windows, slightly expanded the footprint, and completed a second story. Those changes brought more visual contact with the grove and the surrounding terrain while preserving the original house as the project’s anchor. The added glazing is described as a way to connect rooms to the trees rather than as a purely daylight-driven upgrade.

Materials chosen to age in place

Cedar, eucalyptus, teak, concrete, and metal appear throughout the project. The selection favors materials whose surfaces can weather, darken, or develop patina, allowing the house to become more integrated with its setting over time. This is a different strategy from making every finish look new forever: wear is treated as part of the design.

A copper fireplace hood provides one of the clearest historical references. The feature compares it with the hood at Rudolph Schindler’s Kings Road house from 1922. That comparison is presented as a design touchstone, not evidence that Corbett’s house has a direct connection to Schindler or to that property.

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“West côte”: three design traditions in one interior

Kelsey Sundberg developed the interior concept by combining French Provençal, Scandinavian, and California modern references. She called the resulting mix “west côte.” The phrase describes an attitude as much as a style: European pieces and craft traditions are filtered through the relaxed light, vegetation, and indoor-outdoor habits of Southern California.

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Sundberg explained the idea this way: “We talked about expatriates who had traveled the world and come back to LA to settle into their dream house.” In practice, that means the rooms are layered rather than themed. A Scandinavian chair can sit beside a Provençal textile, while California modern materials keep the composition from becoming formal or museum-like.

Furniture with a collected, tactile quality

  • 1950s Danish oak easy chairs introduce a warm, functional Scandinavian note.
  • A custom sectional upholstered in shearling adds softness and a distinctly contemporary scale.
  • A 1950s Lisa Johansson-Pape brass floor lamp supplies a sculptural metal accent and a period-specific glow.
  • A Jean Lurçat tapestry brings a large textile artwork into the mix.
  • Custom work by Dusk, an ebonized-oak dining table, and woven-rush chairs keep the palette grounded in wood and natural fibers.
  • A one-off bench made by Angel City Lumber uses a felled tree, turning local material into a functional object.

None of these pieces is presented as a shopping list or a claim that the same objects are currently available. Their importance in the feature is compositional: they show how the house balances vintage design, custom fabrication, and evidence of the natural world.

A family area that rejects preciousness

The family area makes the project’s practical side explicit. Its sofa is slipcovered in a patchwork of paisley tablecloths, a choice that brings pattern and history into a surface meant to be used. A custom table by Dan John Anderson combines abalone shell and brass, while artwork made in Mexico’s Purhépecha region adds another layer of place and craft. Beanbags lower the formality further.

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Becker says the room was intended to feel comfortable and “not too precious.” That goal explains why high-design objects are mixed with forgiving upholstery and casual seating instead of being isolated as collectibles. The result is a room that can support family life while still carrying the visual richness of the rest of the house.

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The household includes Becker, her partner, and their two daughters. The feature treats the children’s use of the rooms and grounds as part of the design brief, not an afterthought. Durability, softness, and easy movement matter as much as the provenance of a chair or lamp.

The landscape is the home’s soundtrack

Terremoto reworked the grounds with swaths of ferns and live oaks, reinforcing the sense that the house sits inside a grove rather than on a cleared suburban lot. Samuel Webb, the project lead, said, “We wanted to do right by the redwoods and amplify the qualities of this unique setting.” The landscape intervention is therefore less about imposing a formal garden than about strengthening the existing woodland character.

Water, fire, and outdoor rooms

The property includes a pool, firepit, outdoor shower, pizza oven, and creek. These elements create a series of destinations for family life: swimming, gathering around a fire, showering after time outside, and cooking pizza. The creek is not simply a visual feature. Becker says, “We always keep the window open, listening to the creek.” Sound becomes a design material that travels into the interior.

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Frogs and parrots as part of the experience

The frogs and parrots named in the feature are not decorative motifs selected for a theme. They are living sounds and sightings that accompany the family’s use of the property. Along with the creek, they make the boundary between house and habitat feel porous. Becker summarizes that sensation plainly: “You feel like you’re in the middle of nature.”

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Because the feature is a home profile rather than a wildlife survey, it does not establish species inventories, population counts, or ecological measurements. Its point is experiential: the audible life around the house changes how the architecture is perceived.

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How the project balances old and new

Design question Choice described in the feature Effect within the house
How to preserve the original identity? Restore the 1955 redwood-clad structure and retain its character. The existing house remains the project’s visual and historical anchor.
How to improve the relationship with the site? Add windows, slightly expand the footprint, and complete a second story. More rooms and views connect the interiors to the wooded surroundings.
How to keep finishes from feeling overly polished? Use cedar, eucalyptus, teak, concrete, and metal selected in part for how they age. Patina and wear can become part of the home’s appearance.
How to combine several references without making a period set? Blend French Provençal, Scandinavian, and California modern ideas as “west côte.” Vintage, custom, and regional elements read as a collected interior.
How to make a design-forward house usable? Use slipcovered upholstery, beanbags, woven-rush seating, and a relaxed family room. Everyday comfort tempers the formality of rare and custom pieces.

The people who shaped the result

The house’s character comes from several disciplines working on different layers of the property. Lind led the restoration and interior design, protecting the original structure while updating its function. Sundberg established the interior concept and its “west côte” vocabulary. Terremoto, with Webb as project lead, reshaped the landscape around ferns, live oaks, and the existing woodland feeling.

Specialists and makers supplied the details that keep the interiors from becoming generic: Dusk’s custom work, Anderson’s abalone-and-brass table, Angel City Lumber’s bench, and the selected vintage furniture and art. The feature presents these contributions as a network of decisions rather than a single designer’s signature.

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Why the house feels soulful rather than styled

Three choices explain the emotional effect described in the feature. First, the renovation keeps the original 1955 structure legible; the house is not disguised as a new build. Second, materials and furniture are allowed to show texture, age, and irregularity. Third, the landscape is treated as an active participant, with windows and open doors admitting the sounds of water and wildlife.

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That combination also clarifies the project’s restraint. Expansion was real, but it was slight; the second story was completed, but the wooded setting remained the priority. The interior includes valuable, historic, and custom objects, but the family room is deliberately casual. The garden has a pool, firepit, shower, and pizza oven, yet ferns, live oaks, and the creek remain the dominant impression.

Becker’s home is therefore less a lesson in copying a particular look than an example of aligning architecture, objects, and daily routines with a specific site. Its midcentury identity comes from Corbett’s original structure; its current personality comes from the way restoration, collected furnishings, and a living landscape are allowed to coexist.

What the feature establishes—and what it does not

  • The property is a 1955 Pacific Palisades house originally designed by Mario Corbett, who was based in San Francisco.
  • Becker’s family had lived nearby before the house came on the market in 2019.
  • The renovation included additional windows, a slightly larger footprint, and completion of a second story.
  • The project used cedar, eucalyptus, teak, concrete, metal, and a copper fireplace hood compared in the article with Rudolph Schindler’s Kings Road house.
  • The interior concept combines French Provençal, Scandinavian, and California modern references under Sundberg’s “west côte” description.
  • The landscape includes ferns, live oaks, a pool, firepit, outdoor shower, pizza oven, and creek, with frogs and parrots contributing to the soundscape.

The feature does not provide a renovation budget, construction timeline, floor plan, measured square footage, or quantitative environmental data. It also does not independently establish a historic designation for the property, identify every plant or animal species, or document the home’s status after any later event. Those limits keep the story focused on the design and lived atmosphere of this particular house.

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