Tour a French Normandy–Style Compound on the California Coast
By David Foxley, Architectural Digest
Original Article Published by Architectural Digest
“This is where I was a little girl, playing in the waves at this beach house every summer of my childhood,” recalls Ashley Brittingham McDermott of her California coast home, a French Normandy–style property near San Diego. Despite its deep personal significance for the LA native—who, along with her husband, has spent the past 30 years raising four kids in and around New York City—the home, split in 2020 by five siblings following their parents’ passing, was about to be sold. It would mark the end of a sun-drenched, half-century-long chapter in the large, far-flung family’s history.
Prior to the sale, McDermott made a final visit—“my goodbye tour,” she calls it. Her husband sat working at the breakfast table overlooking the glittering Pacific surf as she wandered about tearfully taking photos. “‘This is crazy,’” she remembers him declaring at last. “‘We cannot part with this house.’” And with that, they decided to purchase it, ushering in a sense of relief and a new era in their lives. “The secrets and memories of my childhood were within those walls,” says McDermott, “and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.”
The question was then who could be trusted to bring “this cherished house from my past into the future,” as she puts it. McDermott casually knew AD100 interior designer Mark D. Sikes, who is admired for his signature blue-infused aesthetic. The two also shared an affection for a certain type of California beachside living—one that’s as sandy and laid-back as it is traditional. After she called to gauge Sikes’s interest, the designer drove down from LA, and things clicked. “He walked in and got it immediately, and instantly started having all kinds of brilliant ideas of how to bring the ocean into every room,” McDermott says.
Sikes, for his part, understood the balancing act required of reviving such a distinctive, circa-1970s compound, which comprises a main house and casita encircling a serene brick courtyard. The designer, whose A-list clientele includes such fellow tastemakers as Nancy Meyers and Reese Witherspoon, soon identified a few primary objectives: Open up everything to the ocean; incorporate heirloom pieces, artwork, and patterns from the McDermotts; and, perhaps most importantly, craft an intuitive backdrop for the active family’s daily routines.
“The whole family’s really happy and fun,” shares Sikes. “They wanted the house to feel vibrant, alive—but also to really stay true to [its] feel.” Ultimately, he says, McDermott afforded him a huge amount of freedom when it came to color schemes and fabric choices. “But I wanted to also keep it super classic, timeless, and just appropriate to the spirit of the house,” he adds.
For the main gate’s entryway, Sikes felt it was important to have a view directly past the Melaleuca tree, where McDermott hunted Easter eggs as a child, through the main house’s front door to the ocean beyond. Likewise from the kitchen and dining room through to the breakfast and living rooms: All would feature unobstructed views of the sea. Working with the architect Paul Williger, the designer and his team set about expanding doorways and sight lines in subtle ways that are difficult now even for the homeowners to identify. “He knew exactly how to fix architectural challenges that were unfixable in my mind,” shares McDermott.
Another high note of the project, which began in the throes of the pandemic and yet only took about six months to complete (McDermott likens the operation of Sikes’s office to that of a Swiss timepiece), is the custom decorative painting. Palm Beach, Florida, artist Joseph Steiert was brought in to add organic and architectural detailing throughout. From the casita’s vestibule to stair rails and treads, ceiling beams, hallways, and bathrooms in the four-bedroom main house, Steiert’s bespoke brushwork, Sikes maintains, is “the most special” element in the home.
In the living room, a popular gathering spot for the family when they’re not outside, Sikes installed a wraparound window banquette illuminated by simple sconces, careful to emphasize rather than obstruct the showstopping view. He also repurposed a number of meaningful objects from the clients in the space—lamps, club chairs, a coffee table, a console—recovering or refinishing as needed. “Mark has no ego if you say, ‘I really love this table—it means everything to me.’ He’s like, ‘Let’s use it!’” shares McDermott. “He wants you to be happy, and he wants the room to look great.” Sikes concurs: “I want to incorporate, with any client, things that they love, that are important to them.”
Though much of this project is defined by the subtle enhancement of the home’s original, built-in character—as well as the inclusion of the clients’ own collections—it is Sikes’s signature flourish that brings it all to life. Take the numerous Bielecky Brothers wicker items, which, commissioned by the designer (many with a custom tortoiseshell finish to complement some of the clients’ own wicker pieces), feel as original to the abode as the walls. Wearing a punchy Jaipur paisley fabric in a coral colorway, as in one of the two en suite guesthouse bedrooms, or a Sikesian blue-and-white stripe, as in one of the kids rooms, the wicker-textile combo feels inspired and singular. “I wanted to create a bigger story,” he notes of the layering of new and old.
“When Mark first laid it all out—with the stripes, the paisley, and all of the things on top of each other, I was like, ‘Oh, my God! He’s lost the plot,’” shares McDermott, recalling an initial design meeting. “But he never loses the plot, is the short answer…it doesn’t just fit, it soars.”
Ultimately, says McDermott, Sikes was able to create a plan that keeps in step with the various family members’ routines when they are there. Almost every day at the house begins with morning yoga on the beach. Then tennis, golf, hiking, surfing, or swimming is usually followed by a group lunch at one of two dining setups on the brick terrace overlooking the ocean. Cozy window nooks are plentiful for afternoon reading. And when the weather allows, every day ends back down by big roaring firepits on the terrace with sunset margaritas, chips, and guacamole. “You don’t even have to gather everyone there,” says McDermott of the littoral idyll, a subject of countless talks between the designer and his client, “they just know where to go.”
Ashley Brittingham McDermott, pictured inside her California home.
Photo: CJ Rivera. Art: Rob Wynne/ GAVLAK, Palm Beach, Los Angeles.
When work obligations inevitably arise, ample anticipatory desks can be found here and there, equally unobtrusive and inviting. Similarly, the leafy courtyard—with its calming French blue seating arrangements and natural buffer from the crashing waves—is a popular quiet refuge for Zoom calls (and, on many evenings, a blessedly wind-free barbecue perch). The indoor kitchen, another focal point, is where hours are spent cooking and chatting surrounded by Delft tile and splashes of Farrow & Ball’s Cook’s Blue. It’s a happy backdrop for the rush that follows Sunday morning trips to a local family-run donut shop, a sacred ritual McDermott’s carried over from her own youth, when she would go with her father and always score the choice apple fritter (she still does).
McDermott is quick to admit that it turns out one can go home again. This project made her recognize just how much she had missed it all: the particular sound of the ocean, pelicans dive-bombing at eye level, the colors of the sky as the sun sinks below the horizon—and in the correct direction, as the East Coast resident points out.
“It gave me a place to dream and wonder who I was going to grow up and become, and it gave my children a place to see who their mother was and is,” she says of her own experience and that of her Manhattan-native kids, who are now making their own California coast memories. “As a child, you go out in the world, and you hold onto the places and people that are inside of you. And I think part of what was such a gift about this whole experience—of coming home to a place that was so deeply in my soul—is that it was a reaffirmation.”
