Sun loungers stretch out on close-set terrazzo pavers from ModaConcrete at Kennedy’s poolside paradise.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PUBLIC 311 DESIGN
If evolving and coming full circle are contradictory concepts, Christopher Kennedy has found a resolution: being true to his authentic designer self in his own home.
“I looked back at the pictures of my first house in the Indian Canyons, and it had a lot of seating in the living room,” the designer says. Years later, he’s surrounded by multiple convivial arrangements in the 1978 house he’s dubbed the “Forever Home Fixer” that he shares with his husband, David Clark. “It was cream and green and brown, with accents of yellow. I like what I like.” Even if the first part of his next observation is an exaggeration, the analysis is accurate. “I’ve had the same living room, but they’ve evolved and get better every time.”
Experimenting with various styles over the past two decades has led Kennedy to this moment. The founder of his eponymous firm, of which Clark serves as CFO, has worked throughout the Coachella Valley since moving to Palm Springs in 2003 and establishing his design business two years later. His retail shop enjoyed a 10-year run, too. Now he’s back to his core focus: serving private clients.
Designer Christopher Kennedy with his pup, Harley, in the new wine room, cleverly repurposed from the former laundry room.
Meanwhile, the duo developed expertise in the process of remodeling four (this one makes five) of their personal residences. Kennedy also stepped into the role of a de facto Palm Springs design ambassador, hosting eight iterations of the Christopher Kennedy Compound showhouse, the last of which was in 2019. Championing organizations, including the Palm Springs Animal Shelter, USModernist, and the Oak Grove Sanctuary Palm Springs house for LGBTQ+ youth further deepens his roots in the community.
Lovingly ushering this home, which they purchased in summer 2020, into its next chapter was another extension of the couple’s local commitment. Despite the property’s condition, daunting due to absent maintenance, Kennedy’s desire to “get back to the neighborhood” where the couple sold its last house in 2016 won out. To Kennedy, the three-bedroom, 3,000-plus-square-foot house was a tabula rasa with great bones where he could work his design magic showcasing “a mix of every decade.”
Entering the generously apportioned great room, which opens onto the tee box of the 15th hole of the Indian Canyons Golf Resort North Course, it’s hard to pick which inviting curved sofa or personality-loaded vintage chair to sit upon. Alluring choices spoil guests as well as resident rescue pup, Harley.
Wallpaper by Porter Teleo introduces the home in Kennedy’s favorite color. An Ambella Home credenza through Christopher Kennedy Studio is the shining star of an entry vignette that groups a 1980s mirror, vintage lamp, and glassware, all from Antique Galleries of Palm Springs.
“I just want to live in a boutique hotel,” Kennedy confesses. A fireplace clad in gold-flecked cork wallpaper, save for the angular matte metallic tile around the firebox, separates the shared living and dining rooms from the intimate lounge and bar. “I knew that we would be seeing three different wallpapers,” he says, so visually linking the cork with the custom abstract mural installation by Porter Teleo and the corresponding bespoke green applied in a niche next to the doorway proved an essential strategy. Warm white polished stone flooring unifies all the spaces.
With careful spatial tweaking, Kennedy adapted rooms for the way he and Clark live. He enclosed part of the hallway adjacent to the cocoa-colored office/media room to create a showstopper of a powder room — a master class in green, his favorite color. The galley kitchen bucks the open-plan trend, creating a discrete zone in which palm-tree-motif wallpaper by JF Fabrics evokes the setting. The nook, outfitted with a classic round Eero Saarinen Tulip table and vintage acrylic chairs, a gift from a client, is suitable for their casual everyday dining.
“What I love about this house is that it’s comfortable for two, for a dinner party for eight, or a fundraiser for 200,” he says. “We do all those things.”
Select 1970s touchstones punctuate the spaces. A brutalist-inspired brass pendant light is one of two items they will always keep. (The other being an ibex-base, glass-topped dining table.) A sandy-colored shag rug in the living room evokes groovy vibes and “references the sand traps in the desert.” In the primary bathroom, an earthy tile installation remains. However, instead of adorning the original sunken tub, vintage brown square tiles now enliven the luxurious shower. Each was painstakingly removed and reapplied to the wall.
Nativa Interiors wooden bar stools add a convivial vibe at the newly stone-clad bar. Photograph by Christopher Kennedy for Wendover Art Group. Cowhide rug by Art Hide.
The lounge features a Porter Teleo custom wall covering, sofa by Sagebrook Home, and a 1959 Lucite Lily Chair from Dragonette Limited.
Kennedy’s thoughtful interior architecture and selection of pieces sourced from local faves such as Palm Springs Vintage Market and Antique Galleries of Palm Springs reflect his lived experience. He recalls how re-imagining the Jack Webb estate early in his career, with clients who explicitly did not want to live in a midcentury time capsule, helped navigate his relationship with historic architecture and design. Ultimately, it also shaped his core ethos, which guided this labor of love.
“I always want to feel inspired by the past but grounded in the present — and looking optimistically toward the future,” he says.
Kennedy and Clark’s beloved vintage brutalist pendant light crowns a living room vignette.
Vintage Adrian Pearsall chairs reupholstered in crushed velvet surround the ibex-base glass dining table. On the fireplace, work by Thom Filicia for Wendover Art Group layers atop gold-flecked cork wallpaper from Èlitis. Milano brass chandelier by Jonathan Adler.
To delineate spaces in the primary bedroom, Kennedy installed a brass-plated steel ball chain beaded curtain by Shimmer Screen. Nightstands by Villa & House.
Removing and replacing original tiles in the primary bathroom helped transform a sunken tub into a walk-in shower.
Kennedy’s Top 3
1. Use spaces for how you live. Repurposing the dining room into the lounge and placing the dining table in the great room made perfect sense. Kennedy also raised and enlarged the previous small sunken bar and made it more functional and beautiful. “Because it’s Palm Springs, and we like to entertain.”
2. “To thine own self be true.” The deep, rich palette followed some soul searching. Kennedy struggled with whether to adopt a brighter color scheme that many associate with his brand. Now he’s excited at the prospect of “bringing back hunter green and brown. I decided not to worry about what people expect and do what makes me happy.” Farewell oversized front doors slicked in turquoise paint, hello timeless glossy black.
3. Don’t design for resale. “I’m seeing a design degradation when I look at real estate listings, with many houses looking alike and lacking personality because they are done with some fictitious buyer in mind,” Kennedy says. “My experience is that personal and thoughtful designs will generally fetch top dollar. Would you prefer a home that’s been flipped or a home that has been loved?”