1 of 2
Alise O’Brien
2 of 2
Alise O’Brien
The 11-year-old daughter of the homeowner wanted her bedroom to be an homage to boy band One Direction. But that was before she took a look at Barbie’s Malibu Dream House, a 3,500-square-foot fantasy turned reality designed by Jonathan Adler for Mattel.
So designer Amy Studebaker, owner of Amy Studebaker Design (314-458-5339, amystudebakerdesign.com), merged British and Barbie sensibilities into one over-the-top, very large room.
“She wanted it to feel cozy,” Studebaker says. “It’s a huge room. The ceilings are 12 feet. In order to bring them down a bit, I had the builder, [Dan Wiedemann], do box beams, and then I upholstered the spaces within the boxes in a hot-pink chenille. It absorbs sound, and it makes it warmer and cozier.”
The design started with the same cut-velvet navy-and-pink fabric used in the drapery and the upholstered wall behind the king-size bed. “With the navy, the hot pink also looks red,” Studebaker says. “And we felt that was our British inspiration, that it was navy and kind of red.” As a second tip of the hat to the English-Irish band, she ordered velvet pillows from London depicting the Union Jack. They sit in two Restoration Hardware Versailles chairs, divided by a small Lucite occasional table.
One request that Studebaker deflected was for a canopy bed. “I didn’t want the angular hard lines of a [traditional] canopy, so I found this one with a crown,” she says. “We could really drape the fabric and make it feel almost princess-like—not that she requested princess-like.”
The canopy was created from hot-pink linen. The duvet and bed skirt are linen in a natural shade. “I did a mix of linens and velvet to get the casual to mix with the over-the-top,” Studebaker says.
The love seat is covered in velvet, with shocking-pink chenille inserts in the kick pleat. The designer mounted antiqued mirrors on the walls and had sconces added to them. Of course, those lights don’t hold a shade to the movie star—um, Barbie star—dressing table, with its frame of bulbs from Metro Lighting. In yet another nod to Adler’s dream-house creation, Studebaker commissioned LuLu Belles Fabrics to upholster a corset chair with a tulle skirt.
“They call it the tutu chair,” she says. The dressing table was painted in a high-gloss hot pink, with a pearl finish on the framework and handles. The linen gathered skirt has applied banding, naturally with a touch of sparkle.
Nearby is a study area: a desk covered in mirrors. Studebaker describes it as “another way to throw in something glamorous-looking that’s also kind of edgy.” A walk-in closet and dressing room effectively captures the look of the toy’s real-life house. The walls are lacquered hot pink, and the ceiling is covered in silver-foil wallpaper with a pink sparkly lips design. The dressers are lacquered white with silver-and-glass pulls; the chandelier is beaded.
The bathroom is…turquoise. “We wanted to throw some pops of color in there to bring up some of the funkiness that Jonathan Adler brings in,” Studebaker says. Angie Pritchard of Expressions in Paint & Decorating painted the high-gloss walls and ceilings, and applied molding was added to create panels.
Reflecting on the end result, Studebaker smiles. “This was so much fun,” she says. “I never do things like this.”
