hen it comes to architecture and, especially, the
decoration of houses, there is probably no place on earth—
except possibly Las Vegas—where multi-global fantasies
have been more flamboyantly imagined and painstakingly
realized than in Southern California. Los Angeles is, of
course, the seat of Hollywood; some of the greatest interiors
in the world have been created for celluloid, destined, in
real life, to be dismantled, yet seen and enjoyed over many
decades on the screen, attaining the status of stars in the
narratives they ornament. California has its native styles—
Mission architecture, ranch houses, the glass and wood
modernist houses of Neutra and Schindler, the shingled
craftsman houses of Los Angeles and San Francisco—but
it is the fantastic imports, the Tudor mansions, the Loire
chateaux, the Moorish revivals, that captivate visitors, movie
buffs, film stars and directors, and, of course, art directors.
Decorator Laurie Steichen, who divides her practice between
Los Angeles and another great city of the imagination,
New Orleans, might not describe herself as a fantasist, but
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HYLAND
