Richard Shapiro ,designer and antiques dealer ,created a beautiful romantic villa with a strong Mediterranean feel in Broad Beach ,Malibu .This home was featured in the April 2011 issue of Architectural Digest
“This house is a folly designed to look like an ancient building I could have found hidden beneath the undergrowth for centuries on this remote bluff,” says Richard Shapiro.
“I planned the interiors to look old, too. I’ve always been attracted to antiquity and want to live in another time.”
Shapiro’s “collector’s cabinet” study is a refuge with prized archival North African photography, an 18th-century Spanish desk and a sandstone-and-slate floor. The fireplace is from Cyprus.
He designed the sleek steel balustrade, painted gunmetal gray.
“I went on a lark,” recalls Shapiro. “I stepped inside the front gate, saw the view and discovered total seclusion. I was smitten. Within 30 minutes I knew exactly the house I would build here.”
“I originally planned it as a weekend house, but I’ve found I’m spending more and more time here,” says Shapiro. “Friends drive up from Los Angeles. We have drinks and watch the sunset, and we enjoy dinner on the terrace with a big fire on cool evenings.”
"I loved that I’d be starting from scratch, creating whatever I wanted,” Shapiro explains. “Tall hedges and bougainvillea disguised the neighboring houses so nothing would intrude on my concept.”
A 19th-century Uzbek suzani covers Shapiro’s bed; the 17th-century Italian Savonarola chair stands alongside an antique Burgundian roof corbel
