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We here at Garden Design have an enduring fascination with Dawnridge , the legendary Beverly Hills , California , house of Tony Duquette ( 1914 - 1999 ) , one of the 20th century ’s most fertile and influential graphic designer . We asked contributing editor Paul O’Donnell to talk to its present owner , Hutton Wilkinson , longtime business partner and friend of Duquette . Wilkinson not only maintain the business firm and garden but managed to transform the the three estates into an ever - acquire science lab of melodic theme . Here , Wilkinson reminisces about his relationship with Duquette and his continuing vision for the dwelling and its magnificent garden .
A Vietnamese wedding sauceboat painted in Tony Duquette ’s key signature colors of coral and aqua floats on a koi - carry pool , some specimen of which are 3 fundament foresightful . The three - wicked pavilion at the far right is covered with flowery cut up screens from India . Photo by : Dominique Vorillon .
I begin working with Tony Duquette when I was still a teenager . I first saw Dawnridge , which is now my home , sometime in brief afterward . The res publica then was still covered in sagebrush and native scrub with pine tree diagram and eucalyptus tree reaching to the upper story . Tony and his wife , Elizabeth , built the sign of the zodiac in 1949 but move to Paris before long afterward , so they had n’t done much with it . Their neighbors occupy in the canyons to construct their lawn tennis courts and swimming pools , but Tony and Liz hold on the topography as it was . Then , not long after I went to workplace for Tony , the house next door to Dawnridge burned down and he and Liz buy the land . That ’s when we start go the jade trees and other succulents that continue in the garden today from his cattle farm in Malibu .
The one - Accho estate of Dawnridge is built on a serial publication of terraces , and this sight bring out the one situated at midlevel . Among its most striking chemical element are the pagoda structure with a imaginary onion dome , elaborate statuary fashioned from branding iron and wire , and oil colour drums swerve into sculptural forms . Photo by : Dominique Vorillon .
Tony was not a terribly call for horticulturist . He had no interest in the one complete rose . Instead , he liked to use masses of one plant to iterate patterns . For one of his node ’s company , he once flew in every available anthurium plant in Hawaii and construct a 20 - foundation tree out of them . The plants we get over from Malibu were local species that originally grew in the Chavez Ravine , which became the site of Dodger Stadium in the mid-1950s . The native vegetation was dug up for the stadium ’s foundation , and Tony went to the worksite for a few day running , gathered all the plants they dispose and loaded them into his hand truck .
Today that approach shot of his would be called sustainable , and Tony would be praise as a champion of the endemic . The truth is that Tony was a recycler before anybody thought to approach design that elbow room . Tony made his name in Hollywood in the ’ 40s and ’ L as a set ornamentalist and costumer and as a designer who composed ravishing , idiosyncratic interiors . In the home he adorn for his friends and customer he used what was at handwriting , turn cast - off materials into art — and he built the garden at Dawnridge the same way . Long gone now is a sort of frieze he put on one of the foolery that was made from skateboards he ’d gotten from a company that proceed out of business sector . The chastity in it was not really environmentalism but , rather , Tony ’s inventiveness and queasiness . It was Tony being Tony .
The treehouse marquee is filled with classic Duquette — his Palmer chairs shroud in a malachite print , plant stands made from cast clamshells , and a metal chandelier Duquette designed for Elizabeth Arden . Photo by : Dominique Vorillon .
The wonderful matter about sour with native industrial plant is that they grow readily without a lot of care . You just stick them in the ground and they go . What Tony liked about them was all their unlike shade of greens . He paint his garden with plants .
What really make the garden a employment by Tony , though , are the structures . Tony loved pavilions , which I think came from his love for birdcages — not caged bird , but the actual cages . He would have loved to live in one with a metal ceiling adorned with small tassels .
Duquette fall by his nickname , Tony Abalone , candidly . Throughout the garden , abalone shells come along as interior decoration . Here a couple of obelisks is covered in crushed ear-shell , cast a chandelier centered with a glittering disco ball . Succulents , cactus , agapanthus , yucca , and pine tree fill the garden . Photo by : Dominique Vorillon .
There ’s a treehouse with a orotund tabular array inside that is typical of Tony ’s way and the whole spirit of the garden ’s construction . Its domed stadium came from the filmThe Gazebo , a black comedy from 1959 that asterisk Glenn Ford , while the metal wall panels , with their energetic pattern of circle , are made from the irregular landing place comic strip used in World War II . In the same way , the prop ’s other little houses , all with an Eastern feeling blood-related to humble pagodas , are collections of materials — old windowpane from a Taiwanese firm , division of Victorian mansion house , a roof from Thailand , a cast rosin piece of a film band . They are well - put - together , but they are almost sculptures more than buildings .
Tony took parties very seriously . The garden would be transform when he entertained — he lit up every tree and bush . Everything had to be brought in from warehouses ; he ’d hang chandeliers and order special tablecloths . There was unremarkably some kind of exotic amusement — Balinese or gypsy dancing dancer , for example . The waiters had to be in costume .
Also situated on the ground of the ranch is an indoor / outdoor room covered in patinize Grant Wood venire from Thailand . Within is a carved statue show the genus Phoenix climb from the flames and flanked by two Balinese figures supporting spider flora on their head . pic by : Dominique Vorillon .
You ’ll often hear mass say “ over the top ” when they talk about Tony ’s style because of his repetition of convention and use of strong color . Any verbal description of those party seems to prove the point . But his design really demanded a heap of dominance . If you look at one of his pendant , it ’s a simple piece of wire with some twigs bent into it . Everything is greater than the sum of its parts . So the effect is not overwhelming but intriguing .
Tony took me on as his business mate because we divvy up that esthetic . I was more organized and businesslike than he was , perhaps , but from the start we were on the same plane . I bought the theatre to save it but also to carry on the belongings as a hold up place . So many historic homes in Los Angeles feel dead . We have something like 1,000 pots scattered around the property , and we keep them planted and we move them around . I keep fish and turtles in the ponds . And I perpetually give party .
In addition to Dawnridge , Duquette and his wife , Elizabeth , purchase this 100 - acre ranch in Malibu , California , in the 1950s . It is fertile again following a fire in 1993 . The property takes in outstanding open views of the Santa Monica Mountains , particularly Boney Mountain , on the slopes of which the span ’s ashes were broadcast . A pavilion from the 1959 filmThe Gazebooccupies a mound extend with small - maintenance , drouth - tolerant cactus , yucca , and succulents . Photo by : Dominique Vorillon .
Tony is a design icon . He was the best at what he did . His archives should be deliver and his memory keep up , but it ’s just as important that this living , growing design of his be allowed to thrive .
