November 1, 2026How do you display an expansive collection of museum-worthy furniture and still create a home that feels easy to live in? And how do you achieve that in less than a month? Those were the aesthetic and temporal challenges facing Merissa Haas when a client with just such a collection and a particularly tight timeline tasked her with reimagining a 1920s Beverly Hills house originally designed by Wallace Neff, the influential American architect who shaped Southern California’s distinctive Spanish- and Mediterranean-inflected style.
Many of the client’s pieces, says Haas, “are of the level that you’d find in a gallery, that a lot of people might be afraid to use. The goal was to showcase them to the fullest but to create an environment that works for a family too.”
An architecture obsessive who has lived in houses by Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra and George Washington Smith, the client — who owns a production company specializing in commercials and music videos — spent years accumulating the magnificent assemblage of 20th-century European furniture and lighting, with a particular emphasis on Scandinavian and French design.
“It was a jigsaw,” says Haas of the challenging project. “Our task was to look at the huge inventory and figure out what would work where.”
Working with unique and collectible pieces is a passion for Haas, who came to interior design as a second career, following a stint in the Los Angeles restaurant industry. “It was something I was always interested in,” she says. “So I started studying interior architecture at UCLA, and everything clicked. I just loved sitting down at the drafting board, drawing till five in the morning.” She went on to have positions with Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Timothy Corrigan and Jake Arnold, and then launched her own practice, Studio M.Haas, in 2020.
Each space in the house presented a different opportunity to bring the collection to life, starting with the sunroom, which opens to the backyard. With its cross-vaulted ceilings — typical of California Mission architecture — and elegant arched doors, it provides a striking backdrop for the pieces. “The walls throughout the house are Wimborne White by Farrow and Ball, which is always my go-to neutral,” says Haas. “It’s a great base to bring in pops of color with fabrics, rugs and artwork.”
Here, one such colorful moment takes the form of a yellow sectional by Pierre Yovanovitch, which sweeps gently around a curvy T22 elm coffee table by Pierre Chapo. A mohair rug from FJ Hakimian and Jacques Adnet tile-top side table, meanwhile, add turquoise to the palette. Illuminating all are contemporary pendant lights.
“Previously, the room was lit by very traditional, iron Spanish-style sconces and chandeliers,” says Haas. “But we wanted to bring more modern pieces into the traditional shell.”
In the adjacent library, she put the focus on coziness and comfort, introducing a pair of model 54 shearling lounge chairs by Dagmar and a high-back Frits Henningsen settee in smart chestnut leather, both of which make a case for settling in and staying a while.
Haas stripped the original high-gloss finish from the room’s handsome mahogany joinery, for a softer, textural feel. “This gave it a much warmer vibe, which helped the furniture pieces integrate into the space more easily,” she explains. A glazed-stoneware coffee table and ceramic side table offer a contemporary contrast, as does the wide-plank oak floor. The floor and ceiling lamps, by Paavo Tynell, glow rather than glare.
Tynell also features in the dining room, where one of his rare Snowflake chandelieRS is the hero piece. “It’s so special and took a very long time to install with a very skilled electrician,” says Haas, laughing at the memory. Everything else was chosen to let the chandelier shine, from the modernist Utö dining chairs by Axel Einar Hjorth to the substantial oak table. “We added another mohair rug by FJ Hakimian, this one a rich burgundy, which plays nicely with the tactile, linen paper on the walls and the glass rondel windows,” she says.
The kitchen required little of the designer. “It’s a white kitchen, but it had been done right. It feels absolutely timeless,” Haas says. She added a little magic in the form of an Olof Hult pendant — a domed iron fixture scattered with celestial stars and moons — plus one of the designer’s cast-iron bowls. For seating, she again looked to Hjorth, choosing his sturdy Sandhamn chairs.
The formal living room retained its original iron Spanish revival chandelier, because “it just worked,” says Haas. Beneath it, a luxurious Aubusson rug by Pierre Marie grounds a pair of Gunnel Nyman sofas and a Martin Szekely Tore coffee table, which are joined by a Franco Buzzi floor lamp. A George Nakashima chair and a Pierre Jeanneret file rack provide quiet punctuation. The room was underused before, so the goal was simple. “We wanted people to come and hang out,” Haas says. “Now, with the two sofas positioned to face each other, it encourages both relaxation and conversation.”
For the primary suite, Haas design a custom bed, adding a vintage daybed by Pierre Jeanneret for lounging, and in another of the house’s bedrooms, she took a particularly soft approach, installing a Vilhelm sofa by Flemming Lassen upholstered in dusty pink linen. A Charlotte Perriand stool, a vintage Swedish trestle table repurposed as a desk and more lamps by Paavo Tynell complete the edit of archival designs.
The incredibly tight month-long turnaround time made this was a project unlike any Haas had tackled before. “Even getting everything into the house was no mean feat,” she recalls. “It took a week just to unpack the crates, and the main staircase was too narrow for the larger pieces, so our movers stood on a truck and hoisted them with straps through a window onto a Juliet balcony. I will proudly say that everything remained unscathed.”
The client, she notes, required perfection, and the house met that standard. “It’s an exquisite home, restored so beautifully, and very special indeed. This really was quite the puzzle, but I’m delighted that my team and I solved it.”
