Designer Secrets for Making Your Home Prettier and More Comfortable in 2021

Take cues from this picture-perfect Beverly Hills retreat — and Lisa Vail, the design pro behind it — to banish feelings of cabin fever and make your space feel more like a luxurious haven.

January 26, 2021

By: Lauren Oster

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Photo By: The Salty Shutters

Setting the Stage

When it comes to helping a home put its best foot forward, even icons look to the pros for expert help. Just as Hollywood starlets turn to personal stylists, A-list homes — like this seven-bedroom, 14-bathroom, 15,803-square-foot Beverly Hills residence designed by William Hefner — call for special guidance.

Designer Lisa Vail of Vesta (an interior design, custom furniture and home staging powerhouse that has tackled more than 2,000 properties in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Miami) is the special guide who helped these rooms come alive. She walked HGTV through the process of cultivating the gracious, luxurious West Coast vibe of the home — and how anyone can follow in her footsteps.

Channel the Greats

Lisa’s goal in outfitting the home “was to keep it elegant and sophisticated with a slightly modern feel,” she explains. “It reminded me a little of the old Hollywood Paul Williams [a famed Los Angeles architect who designed for celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball] homes of the ‘30s and ‘40s with the classic winding staircase at the entry, so I guess that would have been my main inspiration for the design.”

Skip Window Treatments

Yup, you read that right. “The last few years I have noticed fewer and fewer window treatments in homes and am rarely asked if I can add them,” Lisa says. Not quite ready to let it all shine out? Go minimal: “I think letting the light in whenever possible is always best, but in spaces that require privacy or light filtering, I recommend a simple solar shade,” she explains.

Create a Classic Cocktail Space

An experienced bartender will tell you that quality quaffs require just a few high-quality, well-balanced ingredients — and an experienced home bar designer will tell you the same thing. When pulling together an entertaining space like this one, “I like to use things in pairs or threes to keep it less fussy, [to arrange] things that are actually used in a bar and try to keep them a similar material,” Lisa says. “I think it looks too busy and distracting if there are too many colors and materials in a small space.”

Act Naturally...

“I love incorporating greenery into a room,” Lisa says. “Especially this room, it was so light and bright and the whole wall opened up to the exterior pool space, [so] it felt like part of the yard. Interior plants add life, color and an organic element to a space, and this one felt appropriate and balanced with all the green just outside.”

…And Know When to Hold the Greens

Yes, leaves and blooms are a gorgeous way to add energy to a space — but if they’re implausible, they’ll have the opposite effect. “I like to use interior plants where a little color is needed [in a space where] a plant could actually thrive and survive,” Lisa says. “If you have a room that’s dark, I would recommend [decorating with a] piece of art like what I used in the downstairs game room. Even if the plant or tree is fake, we want to think it isn’t; once you put it in a room with no windows everyone knows it’s fake, and that, I think, defeats the purpose!”

Dress in Neutral Layers

Lisa created an informal arrangement of artwork on the game room counter to give it “a bit of a curated lounge vibe, which I think loosened up the space,” she says. She also chose a pool table and chairs that serve specific functions without calling too much attention to themselves. “It goes back to [using] an integrated color palette and nothing that can be pinpointed to a specific style, or at least one that is not too far from the rest of the house,” she explains.

Pile on Textiles

Sumptuous linens are the difference between a crowd-pleasing guest bedroom and one that just feels generic. “Hands down, [that feeling is all about] the bed,” Lisa says. “I always choose a blanket or throw for the end of the bed, sometimes another one to go under the duvet and then a decorative pillow or two.”

Think Like a Jeweler

Showing this bathroom in its best light is all about making the most of the spectacular honed marble on its walls and floor; just as gems are faceted and set to enhance their natural beauty, materials like this should be deployed and complemented strategically. “I love using a raw, natural material in rooms like this,” Lisa says. “It softens the space and gives it a little organic vibe. Same goes with the greenery [on the vanity], it just adds a bit of life with a pop of color. The vase I really liked because it’s a smoky gray glass that coordinated with the color of the stone.”

Have a Seat

Whether you've got the square footage for a full-fledged sitting area or are cozying up in a spare chair, making space to be awake in your bedroom is key. "You don’t always want to feel like all you can do when in your room is get in bed and sleep," Lisa argues. "You should also have a quiet space of your own to curl up and read a book or just put your shoes on. Somewhere designated to calm, not [for] work or kids but a space all your own."

Warm Up the Bathroom

In this home’s principal bathroom suite, coziness is literal: “Having a fireplace in a bathroom is definitely very luxurious and will always create a very inviting space,” Lisa says. “It instantly warms up the room and makes you want to be in there.” If a tubside hearth isn’t in the cards, consider softening surfaces with feminine details like the orchids on the vanity. Another add? “An elegant, simple silver or gold tray with some white towels or a pretty perfume bottle.”

Elevate Utility

While this diminutive bathroom is almost all business, details like its marble slabs and tile give its simplicity a sense of refinement. When a space is elementary, its few elements should be heavy hitters.

Acknowledge the TV

Pretending a television isn’t part of your space won’t make it any less noticeable. Neglecting to incorporate it in your design will make it more visually intrusive. “I like to use TVs in spaces that are designated for TVs so they look fitting and appropriate for the room,” Lisa says.

Repeat Styling Techniques

While variety is the spice of life, as the saying goes, tried and true arrangements on shelves and tabletops will give your home a sense of cohesion. When creating a look like this one, “my first go-to is books, then some kind of greenery or floral,” Lisa says. “I like to add height on coffee tables, and I love using all the same type of sprig in a simple vase. You can see this over and over throughout the house: I like to play with heights.”

Make the Most of Throws

Why settle for a single occasional blanket when every seat can be the best one in the house? “I love using a simple cashmere throw over the back of a chair, and since I had four chairs and I like repetition, I used one on each chair. It also gave a little contrast to an otherwise all-white room,” Lisa explains. That said, don’t go Full Blanket Fort: “Too much of anything is too much, even with a throw; balance is key!”

Pay Attention to Proportion

Know that the relative size of your area rug will have a huge (no pun intended) effect on the feel of your space. “I strongly believe that a rug needs to either be big enough to support the furniture sitting on it with space around it for the furniture to breathe or small so it centers the space,” Lisa says. “Too big and the furniture gets lost — and slightly too small, the furniture will feel squeezed.” Speaking of proportion…

Build Around the Dining Table

This spacious dining room demanded thoughtful geometry. “The first step was selecting a table that fit the scale and proportion of the room,” Lisa says. She settled on a sleek, generous table that’s 12 feet long and about 4 feet wide. “I didn’t want anything too flashy [to] take away from the chandelier, but something to complement it. The mirrors added reflection, and [I always use] a large-scale piece of art for balance and movement.”

Pare Down the Kitchen

A substantial wall of cabinetry makes overhead storage virtually unnecessary, lending the open kitchen and dining area a magnificent sense of openness. Thanks to warm-toned wood and hardware, the minimal space feels opulent rather than Arctic.

Emphasize Echoes

The open plan portion of the first floor owes its harmony to shapes and materials that appear again and again: crisp right angles carry from the retractable windows in the dining area through the china hutch and all the way back to the windows flanking the television. Veined stone, in turn, starts at the kitchen island and recurs in similar material surrounding the hearth.

Consider Your Influences

Let your home’s defining characteristics guide how you develop your spaces. In Lisa’s case, “I think the fact that everything [in this home] completely opened up to the exterior was my biggest influence,” she says. “I really wanted it to feel seamless, and the exterior furnishings needed to work with what was inside. I loved the serene, park-like feel of the yard — it felt like you were in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.”

Invest in Your Outdoor Space

It pays to push past sticker shock when it comes to outfitting exterior portions of your home. “You get what you pay for, especially outdoors,” Lisa notes. “Outdoor furniture is expensive; it needs to withstand the elements and needs to be good quality, unless you want to buy new every season. It’s worth the investment.”