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“People think of home staging as an impersonal, neutral process that helps a company sell a house. On the contrary, our goal with staging is to create beautiful and charismatic spaces in which people can actually imagine themselves living and existing,” explains Andrew Bowen, partner and head of staging at New York- and California-based studio ASH NYC. His team at ASH Staging, a division of the interiors and development firm, designs about 150 projects per year, each one imbued with a sense of soul. Such is the case particularly when working with historic homes, including a recent Spanish Colonial-style bungalow in the Outpost Estates neighborhood of Los Angeles, originally built in the 1920s.
The three-bedroom home doesn’t exactly adhere to one specific style because Bowen was keen on incorporating all of the eras, pieces, and looks that spoke to both him and his team. He explains: “For us, it’s really about creating a thoughtful, aspirational, and authentic experience no matter what the setting is. Plus, our team is quite diverse in both their own styles and upbringings, which helps us create that wonderful variety.” Although Bowen may not be known for designing true to any one particular period, he has a soft spot for Machine Age, Streamline Moderne, and anything created in the era of disco. It shows.
He owes his expertise to a long education in design, which started when he was 10 years old. “From an early age, I was a subscriber to Architectural Digest,” he says. “My mom really helped foster that by subscribing me to the magazine. To this day, she still manages my subscription,” Bowen says and chuckles. As a young adult, he received a more formal education at New York University, where he studied urban design and architecture. The city of New York itself has been a resource, too, offering inspiration across the urban fabric.
Each home’s eclectic look is backed with its own inspiration—and sometimes, a muse. “It definitely has elements of contemporary design, but because it’s in the heart of L.A., we wanted to infuse it with a few moments of Old Hollywood glamour,” Bowen says. As for the muse? She’s a fictional starlet from the early 20th century, returning from a trip abroad with a few fantastic and utterly unique pieces picked up while traveling. “We wanted it to feel like designing this home took years of collecting and curating pieces—both old and new—from around the world,” he adds. In reality, however, the home took just under 30 days for him and his team to complete.
Though it wasn’t exactly a years-long project, Bowen achieved his goal of creating a layered and collected look: It’s chock-full of everything from custom ASH NYC pieces to vintage finds. Bowen says, “We always try to source locally when we can. For instance, Badia Design Inc. in Los Angeles is a great resource. Of course, we find amazing pieces all over the world, but we are big believers in finding things nearby.” Perhaps that’s one of the numerous reasons that contribute to this long-standing home’s originality.
“One of the things I love most about this house is that it’s not pretending to be so historic,” Bowen says. His mission was to embrace the history where he could, like in the underground tarot card reading room—whose walls are swathed in a dark mauve paint—or on the covered loggia, whose main source of light is an antique lantern that came with the home. And all of that happens without sacrificing the modern luxuries sought by homeowners in 2021.
