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If your first glimpse of Adi Goodrich and Sean Pecknold’s Los Angeles home is their soulful terracotta kitchen or cream-hued living room, you’d never guess the color they can’t get enough is actually green. Goodrich, a multi-hyphenate designer, and Pecknold, a film and music video director, point to the evidence: a bathroom swathed in moss and lime, a music room somewhere between avocado and olive, a laurel-hued front door, native plants cocooning the property. “We wanted it to be flooded with color,” Goodrich says.
Located in the postage stamp–sized neighborhood of Hermon, a half mile sandwiched between the 110 Freeway and Monterey Hills, the house left much to be desired when the couple first came across it in 2022. All the charm that the circa-1912 structure would have brought to the table had been stripped away in favor of shades of gray, can lights, and unsalvageable floors.
But what if they could sell their 1962 A-frame in Big Bear and design this new residence exactly as they’d like? Plus, there was new hardscaping in the back, and a fresh four-car garage—exactly what they needed to house a studio, wood shop, and office space for a few employees.
The way Goodrich and Pecknold talk about each other’s creative work is filled with mutual reverence, the kind of underlying awe that’s pleasing to take in as a bystander to their banter. They both prefer to spend their days making things, which meant happily handing over their renovation plans to the contractors who had brought past projects, like Goodrich’s design for the Wine and Eggs storefront, to life.
The couple had floors redone, walls moved and refinished, and a new kitchen installed. Despite their love for all things green, they chose to coat several of the rooms in Benjamin Moore’s Muslin, a warm off-white that became the anchor for the more pigmented spaces throughout the home.
The kitchen is one of those spots, where the aforementioned dusty terracotta cabinetry grounds the terrazzo backsplash (made from discounted, cut-down floor tiles) and cherry wood accents inspired by the caramel-esque patina of Charlotte Perriand’s furniture. “It’s not an obvious choice for a kitchen, but it works,” Pecknold says. “It feels warm and very comfortable when you’re in there.” What Goodrich calls the chef’s table is situated in the center instead of an island, the family’s gathering place for meals or coffee.
On the other side of the Philippe Malouin–designed dining table is the music room, an awkward pocket of space that the couple transformed into a verdant retreat. With walls and ceiling painted in Sherwin Williams’s Paradise, it became a calming hideaway for Pecknold. “That’s the whole point of it—to listen to a record and zone out,” Goodrich says.
Traipse into the living room and plop onto the sofa under an artwork the couple made together: a framed piece of leftover muslin from a series of slow-motion videos they created for Fleet Foxes’ 2017 world tour. Nearby, an Eames lounger reupholstered in Maharam Aria fabric holds court; Goodrich recovered it while pregnant with their now one-year-old son, Eero.
His nursery is drenched in a slightly muddy yellow; there’s a tension to the tone that Goodrich is drawn to as a designer. Plus, it was essentially a neutral, a color that could age with him. Artwork by Goodrich and family friends hangs on the walls over furniture that doesn’t feel overly babyish (besides, of course, the crib). It’s a balance that the designer appreciates as a new mom.
“Our baby is one year old, and to be like, wow, when he looks around, what’s in his little fresh eyes are objects that his mother made and sculptures that his dad made and a massive painting that we made together, and friends’ art on the walls—that made me just feel like maybe we’re living life in a good, proper way as designers and artists raising a kid,” Goodrich says.
The bathrooms were finished by 2024, and both have an unlikely muse: humble Daltile, a brand often used in campground and airport bathrooms. Pass through a powder blue portal (all the interior doors are gilded in the color) to the primary bedroom and you’ll be greeted by a patchwork of tile: matte cornsilk 4-by-4s surrounding the tub and walls, maroon dead-stock Japanese mosaics defining the edge of the sink, and French speckled squares lining the floor. A cherry wood vanity and rich chestnut window trim pops against the pale yellow walls.
“You pair those together and then, all of a sudden, you have a really interesting color story while using more affordable materials,” Goodrich notes. “Not everything in the room has to be expensive.” Making a statement in the second, smaller bathroom was also important. To punch up the simple green square tile, Goodrich painted the ceiling an icy lemon-lime and the cabinet fronts a grassy hue. By the time they wrapped up, the home’s landscaping was one of enveloping foliage. “When you looked out, you just saw green out of every window,” she says.
As for that exterior: “When we first moved in, the home was surrounded by decomposed granite,” Goodrich recalls. “There were no plants anywhere.” She plunked grass and natives in the ground as soon as they moved in. (“There’s a real native garden obsession in our community of friends,” she explains) Just this past winter, the couple removed a concrete slab and a driveway, replacing it with natives like red buckwheat, deer grass, apricot mallow, white sage, and olive trees, as well as a lush lawn.
Pecknold refers to the studio off the backyard as the heart of the property, as well as he and Goodrich’s relationship. “Our home is where we feel the most comfortable, but where we feel alive is the studio,” he says. “When you go down there, you’re just inspired to make stuff. And that’s what we think is a priority in life.” Together, the two structures operate synergistically, in much the same way that Goodrich and Pecknold do in their family of three and larger community, who “take over and fill it with jokes and stories,” Pecknold says. “That’s when I really see it as a complete project, when that happens.”