In this month's Dwell, the magazine peeks inside the "cabin loft" of actor Vincent Kartheiser, a.k.a. Pete Campbell on AMC's Mad Men. From the spread, it's clear why the midcentury-obsessed publication (and Simpsons riff!) has got the hots for Karteiser's home; with a rustic-meets-Mad Men appeal, the L.A. studio designed by Funn Roberts has all the types of goodies Dwell is obsessed with: Herman Miller lounges, Eames molded plastic chairs, a bed that drops from the ceiling, and—the best part—a headboard made of "a huge slab of redwood [fastened] to the wall ... on hinges so that, when the bed is raised, the piece of wood can flip down to double as a desk."
Upon hitting it big with Mad Men Kartheiser, a Minnesota native, went a bit off-script, snatching up a 580-square-foot cabin in a city filled with bloated, multimillion-dollar real estate. Small it may be, but here it means that every detail, from the closet's shoji-inspired fiberglass-and-steel screens to the Montauk black slate in the (open) bathroom, is handpicked to forge a nugget of unadulterated "Japanese-industrial" appeal.
"I believe that whenever you're hiring an artist, and Funn is an artist, he's going to do his best work if he's trusted," Kartheiser told Dwell. Indeed, the magazine writes that "Kartheiser, often in motion and prone to exuberant outbursts, and Roberts, tall, fair, and soft-spoken, tease and jab each other like old men in a barbershop."
The place is full of custom trickery to save space. The bed's pulley system uses a 300-pound counterweight tucked in side Kartheiser's closet, where the red curtain that slinks out for bedroom privacy also gets tucked away. The coffee table outside is actually a fire pit, and, amazingly, there's room for a dry sauna, with a chunky, undulating ceiling made from 2,500 bits of wood. Even more amazingly, the recently-engaged (to Alexis Bledel!) actor has room to share it all with a cat, who looks absolutely perfect perched on the windowsill by his living area, below.
· All The Printed Page posts [Curbed National]
· Watch The Simpsons Tackle Dwell, 'Neutra' Architecture [Curbed National]
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