Beverly Hills is one of the few places where you can drive a single block and pass a Spanish mission, an English manor, a French chateau, and a wall of glass that looks like it landed yesterday. It should be chaos. Somehow it works, and it works because almost all of it, underneath the different costumes, is rooted in classical proportion. That is the thread I follow whenever I look at these houses.
Here is a designer's walk through the architectural styles you will actually recognize in Beverly Hills villas, and what each one is really doing.
Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean
These two are cousins and they define the Beverly Hills fantasy: low red tile roofs, arched doors and windows, stucco walls, and courtyards built around a fountain. The Mediterranean version pulls a little more from Italy and Greece, but both are about warmth, shade, and a house that turns inward to a garden. I have a real soft spot for a stucco villa organized around a courtyard. There is nothing precious about it, and rooms that open to the outdoors are rooms that get lived in.
Georgian and Traditional
This is where my heart tends to go. Georgian architecture is classical proportion made visible: symmetrical facades, columns, pediments, generous windows, a graceful staircase inside. The foundation of my whole aesthetic is an appreciation for these proportions, and a good Georgian or traditional villa is basically a lesson in why they endure. Formal living rooms, a library, a proper dining room. It is elegant without trying too hard.
French
I lean French in almost everything, so a Beverly Hills chateau speaks my language directly. Mansard roofs, crystal chandeliers, parquet floors, wrought iron balconies, and interiors full of moldings. Done badly it tips into costume. Done well, with real restraint, it is one of the most beautiful things you can build. A hand-knotted wool rug with old-world detail, like the pieces in our Iconium collection, belongs under a room like that.
Tudor, Craftsman, and Cape Cod
The English Tudor, with its steep roofs and wood paneling, leans more old-world and heavy than I usually go, though a beautiful antique fireplace can win me over anywhere. Craftsman and Cape Cod are the quieter, cozier end of the spectrum: natural materials, built-in bookcases, river-stone fireplaces, a certain honesty to how they are made. Not glamorous, but genuinely likable houses.
Mid-Century Modern and Contemporary
Then there is the LA that put mid-century modern on the map: flat roofs, open plans, floor-to-ceiling glass, and a real connection to the landscape. The contemporary villas push that further with bold shapes and glass, steel, and stone. These interiors want fewer, stronger gestures, and a graphic rug earns its place here. Something like the maze designs in our Labyrinth collection gives a spare modern room the one bit of pattern it needs without cluttering it.
The style hiding underneath all of it
Here is the one people forget, and it is the most Beverly Hills of all. Hollywood Regency took classical elements and proportions and exaggerated them for drama: high-gloss lacquer, bold color, gilt, mirror, a sense of theater. It is the LA idiom, and it happens to be the direct ancestor of the way I design. If you want the glamour these villas trade on, that is where to look. Start with our Hollywood Regency style guide, and for how it lives in a home today, our take on the modern Regency revival.
Choosing your style
If you love old-world warmth, the Spanish and Mediterranean villas deliver it. For classical elegance, Georgian and French. For simplicity and craft, Craftsman and Cape Cod. For light and openness, mid-century and contemporary. And for pure glamour, always Hollywood Regency. The best of these houses share one thing regardless of costume: real proportion underneath, and rooms meant to be lived in rather than admired from the doorway.
