by Lisa LiddanE
photos by Nicholas Koon
A barclay butera-designed house
retains its cozy and relaxed atmosphere after a decade.
Two works of art by Hisashi
Otsuka in the dining room have provided color inspiration for that room.
The allwhite kitchen
features a Carrara
marble-topped island
and espresso cane
bar chairs;
The master suite
features a soothing palette
of leafy greens.
Sometimes, proof of how well a house fits a life
doesn’t come until much later. For Liz and Mike Rudinica, it arrived after a decade, when their sons hadgrown up.
The boys were eight and 16 when theRudinicas
moved into their newly constructed home in the Bayshores enclave of Newport Beach in
2000.
“We wanted a family-friendly beach shack,” Mike
says.
“And we wanted it comfortable,” Liz adds.
The living room picks up the
muted citrus hues of the dining room;
With that criteria in mind, they chose reclaimed wood
planks from an old barn for
the floor. The planks had a distressed surface on which their
active boys would make their mark and leave memories behind, so the Rudinicas figured,
why not make that the raison d’etre.
The slipcovered furniture gives
the outdoor room a living room vibe
The couple had picked out furniture and decorative pieces
here and there, but eventually decided that they wanted and needed a pro’s touch to pull everything together. That task fell to Sudi Jelveh,
of Barclay Butera, a company that’s known for a diverse array of location-specific
designs from Manhattan to Los Angeles, and many sites in between. Jelveh used the
Rudinicas’ art collection as
inspiration, then interpreted the couple’s desire for a
relaxed haven in the well-known Barclay Butera coastal vernacular.
The house already had wonderful bones, with an efficient
floor plan designed by Kurt
Donat that could enable one to “walk from the front of the
house to the back without touching a single door handle,” as Mike puts it. There were
bedrooms for each of the boys as well as a civilized “man cave” toward the front of the house
for Mike, and what Liz calls her “shabby chic room,” a place for her to work
on her projects, located in the rear section of the house.
The family room’s sectional is a
favorite spot;
Jelveh infused the classic Newport Beach canvas of white
walls and trim and neutralhued, British Colonial-influenced and tropical furniture with
doses of color. “I made her cry when I rejected her first color scheme,” Mike says. “But she’s very resilient and she came back
and came up with a new color scheme that we were able to work with. Everyone
got along after that and we’ve become very good friends.”
Mike likes bright
colors, so Jelveh drew hues from art by John Botz, Ali Gollar, Aldo Luongo,
among others. From Hisashi Otsuka’s paintings, for example, she chose a quiet
orange that would be used in the dining room.
Jelveh used two of
Barclay Butera’s signature natural textures, raffia and seagrass, on
wallcoverings, furniture and accessories to bring shades of sand, khaki and
camel to life. She integrated antiques from Liz’s family among the new
furniture items, placing the armoire in the master suite and a chest in the
project room. Though these heirlooms have high sentimental value for Liz, the
rest of the family prizes a piece of furniture that’s decidedly newer: the stain-resistant
ultrasuede camel sectional which seats the entire family, with plenty of room
for guests.
Since the interior
design was completed, the house holds many memories of sand being shaken off
from the boys’ flip-flops. And with their sons no longer in the house every
day, the home could have easily felt too large for Mike and Liz.
It doesn’t, the couple
says.
The nest may be empty,
but it’s still quite cozy, especially at night when flames blaze on the
fireplace and it’s just Mike and Liz kicking back on the sectional.
As hundreds of casual
onlookers who visited the house during the Newport Harbor High School Home and
Garden Tour in May observed, the house remains timeless in design – a
successful project by Barclay Butera, to be sure. For the Rudinicas, it is
simpler than that – it’s a reflection of their laid-back but decidedly well-lived
existence.
