It’s not an insult to call Pressed Juicery CEO and cofounder Hayden Slater a control freak. He’s well aware. The perfectionist was so hands-on with his Belgian-inflected ‘50s Venice bungalow renovation that he learned CAD from a company architect so he could design its plaster walls, spent close to six days placing guest bathroom hardware, and sat on the floor alongside the workers laying his bleached multiwidth French oak floors using a collection of coins to measure the unique spacing of each and every plank. “I don’t know if I would be described as sane during that process,” Slater admits carefully. Still, “the idea of creating something from the ground up and taking control of not just the architecture and construction but literally the materials, the furniture, the art—like, executing this vision—was definitely a driving force throughout the whole project.”
It’s not that Slater didn’t trust his team; he was just that excited to be building his first home and experience it rumbling to life. The intense labor of love was actually a family affair, though Slater shares the 2,000-square-foot bungalow with only his beloved canine, Finley. The CEO’s dad and brother, third- and fourth-generation contractors, were hired for the hyperpersonal job, and, admits Slater, “I don’t know if they would ever work with me again.” (They do, however, build out all Pressed Juicery’s West Coast locations.)
Slater’s rustic dining table is one of the only pieces that made the cut from his old loft. He had the chairs made with rope, and hung a complementary series by Ed Ruscha. “I love the detail to them,” he says.
The pair eventually surrendered to Slater’s obsessive readiness to redo windows and ceilings if they weren’t executed precisely as he envisioned them. The native Angeleno grew up around friends whose fathers were producers and directors, and walked away with a new appreciation for his own: “This was the first time it hit me how awesome it is to have a dad who’s a contractor,” says Slater sincerely. Aesthetic differences aside, he also picked up on their shared perfectionism: “The little details, he will not move on until it is perfect.” In a house this clean and austere, of course, the details are magnified.
The hyperminimal, über-serene approach was partially in response to his hectic lifestyle. When Slater decided to move from his loft off too-hip Abbot Kinney Boulevard, he looked east of Lincoln Boulevard for the space and calm the area promised. “What I was really excited about was taking something authentic to Venice, like one of those beach bungalows, and really making it special without building one of those big modern boxes that you often see exploding here.” Slater continues, “I viewed this, especially going super minimal, like the entire house was a piece of art. There was so much purpose and intent put into every piece of furniture and every light and the materials but also the hardware. I really was trying to create something unique and different."
Slater’s backyard pool, especially, has the tranquil feeling so signature to Aman resorts. Indeed, that evocative yet minimal design philosophy inspired him in his use of simple grasses, olive trees, and a black pebble bottom.
Surprisingly, for such a calculated planner, Slater admits many purchases were impulse buys made when struggling with sleep. “Very often at night I’d find myself on auctions or 1stdibs, and it’s easy to make that click and then I’d wake up like, gasp!” Close friend and interior designer Courtney Applebaum acted as a sounding board when Slater faced uncertainty, but he’d essentially imagined every interior detail before even breaking ground. “I tried not to get too stuck in my head and take it as this living, evolving thing so I wasn’t so married to the finished product I had mentally created,” he says.
Slater challenged himself to discover “how little can I get to in terms of things but still making it feel me.” Most of his furniture and art collection was sent to his Seattle home as he did the 30-day Minimalism Challenge (on the first day of the month you get rid of one thing, on the second two items, and on and on). “It opened my eyes to the fact they’re all just things, and it’s what you put meaning to,” says Slater. “It was a really nice cleansing experience.” To that end, the house is sparsely decorated to the point of being on the verge of unfinished: After moving in some friends commented that he needed to add.
Within this Aman-inspired environment every object truly does exist on its own, creating a museum-like energy in which each is seemingly padded with air and light, allowing a person to take in a Pierre Jeanneret chair or David Lynch lamp without distraction. Not one light bulb or smoke detector juts from the smooth plaster surfaces the abode is swaddled in. His jewel box office, for instance, contains only a lived-in Børge Mogensen couch, Peter Beard print and prized Jeanneret desk (with a chair by the same designer) he’s been watching for years. “I didn’t really want anything else.”
For Slater, bucking convention, shunning the L.A. mega-manse standard, worked. “Simplifying is really nice,” he says. “It’s OK to let things go, and it’s OK to look for new things. This house was built in the ’50s and they were kind of on to something. Back then people were more realistic in terms of what they needed versus what they wanted.”
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