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After they moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2019, it took a while for Laure Heriard Dubreuil and Aaron Young to find the sweeping midcentury modern home they now share with their children, Marcel and Marguerite, ages eight and three. The view “sealed the deal,” says Young, explaining how the couple’s three-year search halted on a dark winter night when they first viewed the property, situated on one of the verdant peaks above Beverly Hills, and encountered its magnificent vista. With Los Angeles twinkling below through the glass-walled great room, which now incorporates their dining, living, and lounge areas, they knew they had found the perfect dwelling for their family. “The entire city—from Long Beach to downtown—lights up for us every single night,” adds Young, a California-born artist who emerged in the New York art scene in the early 2000s.
Retracing their first steps across the herringbone-patterned redbrick floor, which flows indoors and out, the couple lead an expedition through the house, pausing poolside, still reveling in the breathtaking surroundings. “This move was all my fault!” Young says of the shift from East Coast to West. The idea was to put down roots and create a home base for the family. “I was born in San Francisco and grew up in Monterey and Carmel. After we had our second child, I said to Laure: ‘Let’s go to California and set a foundation for the children there.’”
In the works, as the couple made the move, was another one of Heriard Dubreuil’s babies—namely, the Los Angeles flagship of her luxury multi-brand fashion house, The Webster. Sir David Adjaye designed the 11,000-square-foot L.A. store, the most daring of The Webster’s 10 boutiques, which are located across North America, to be an immersive retail experience within the shop as well as an expansive outdoor public concourse. The flamingo pink concrete-clad structure (the color has been a signature since The Webster South Beach launched in 2009) now animates a formerly dormant corner of the iconic Beverly Center shopping mall it abuts. “Laure was seeking to create a space that transcended its primary purpose of selling,” the Ghanaian-British architect recalls. “She wanted the flagship to feel contextual and create a counterpoint to a large-scale department store that would appeal to a new generation of consumers.”
For her home, Heriard Dubreuil’s goal was to configure a space for their own younger generation and also to seamlessly incorporate the contemporary art and midcentury furniture with which she and her husband have lived over the past 14 years, initially in a SoHo loft and then in an East Village town house (AD, September 2016). Their collection combines personal keepsakes with museum-worthy sculptures and paintings by Young and his circle, including Dan Colen and Nate Lowman (Marcel’s godfather). “The aim was to make the art feel as though it had always lived here,” she explains.
That mission, however, proved complicated, as it all came out of shipping containers and basked a little too brightly in the dazzling California sunshine that permeated the family’s new domain. Stéphane Parmentier—the Paris interior designer, who is also creative director of The Webster’s home collection and recently conceived its Montecito and Toronto boutiques—weighed in with some curatorial guidance.
Working as “an extra set of eyes,” Parmentier strategically introduced distance between statement-making pieces to create a pace as you walk through the rooms and to introduce more serenity into the floor plan. In the main bathroom went a vibrant Gaetano Pesce chair. Handmade wooden tiger-shaped thrones, purchased by Heriard Dubreuil and Young in Udaipur in 2018, were moved onto the cedar-lined backyard terrace, where they now conjure a playful jungle theme, which is enhanced by a lush bamboo grove as well as bird-of-paradise and Song of India plants. To further relax the ambience and help focus attention on the art, chairs and sofas were reupholstered in calm whites, neutrals, and earthy hues.
Exotic potted evergreens are part of a sculptural plantscape arranged by interior plant horticulturist Zilah Drahn. The domestic nature walk was conceived by interior designer Katrina Caso to deliberately interact with the family’s art and furniture in order to ground the pieces in the indoor-outdoor California lifestyle. The greenery also helps unite the many quarters of this sprawling abode, from its four bedrooms, located within opposite wings, to the surrounding terraces and a discreet pathway outside the home office from which Heriard Dubreuil commands The Webster’s expanding empire and her resortwear line, LHD. “It’s our own tropical bird’s nest!” Heriard Dubreuil observes of the lush flora.
Caso, who was raised in the Bahamas and Switzerland and now divides her time between L.A. and Paris, also enhanced her client’s furniture collection with thoughtfully selected French designs that would evoke her homeland. Pieces include a circular cocktail table in an amber hue evoking Heriard Dubreuil’s heritage. (Rémy Martin, one of the “big four” Cognac houses, is owned by her family.) Egg Woman, a sculpture by Roger Capron, the artist who helped establish Vallauris as an artisanal ceramics center, rests atop a chic Caso-sourced black Pierre Cardin dining table that now serves as Heriard Dubreuil’s desk.
Designed for Roche Bobois, the sleek ’70s piece stands upon a dazzling expanse of terrazzo. When Heriard Dubreuil converted an erstwhile gym into her home office, she installed the floor to recall the one she discovered and restored in the 1930s Art Deco hotel that became The Webster South Beach. Why? “It’s always nice to have a touch of The Webster at home,” the savvy entrepreneur declares.
This story appears in AD’s September 2022 issue. To get a copy, subscribe to AD.
