Elements of Style
Soothing colors, rich textures and decorator details make designer and HGTV personality Joe Ruggiero’s home a bastion of comfort
VIEW MORE PHOTOS
Designer and television host Joe Ruggiero says he sometimes wonders, "What is an Army veteran and former CBS sports producer doing in a place like this—living the good life in California and designing furniture and fabrics for major retailers?" The route to becoming a popular industry expert and even a brand name has been a "long, happy journey, with a few bends in the road," he says.
The longtime host of HGTV’s first signature design series, Homes Across America, and former editor-in-chief of Home magazine has built a 20-year career dispensing sensible, easy-to-implement advice on how you can enhance your home—and, he says, his passion for design began when he was a child. "My father was a first-generation Italian with an eye for craftsmanship," Joe notes, "so I think a love of home and good design is something that is in my blood." After working for years as a journalist, he launched his own design studio 12 years ago, creating fabrics and furnishings for a growing mix of well-known home-design companies, including Calico Corners, Caperton Furniture Works, Norwalk Furniture and Sunbrella.
"I am lucky enough to be able to accomplish most of my own design work at home," he says, chatting from the atelier-like office he shares with his wife, Barbara, in their sun-dappled house in the Los Angeles area. With views of a terraced, French-inspired garden and pool, his desk-side perch provides constant inspiration for his broad array of designs for botanical and nature-inspired fabrics, furniture, and trim.
The Ruggieros’ 2,000-square-foot 1930s-style bungalow was originally the pool house of a larger California estate, which was subdivided in the 1950s by producer Norman Lear. "The owners in the seventies added some more traditional touches, such as English library paneling, so the architecture is a hybrid," Joe says. He and Barbara fell in love with the two-bedroom house once they spied its terraced gardens. "There are four well-groomed terraces surrounding the house where we can dine and entertain," he says. "With multiple sets of French doors overlooking the pool, treillage and plantings, it truly functions as an indoor/outdoor space."
To focus the eye as much as possible on the gardens, Joe says he deliberately kept the interior palette of fabrics and finishes neutral. The walls are a rich mixture of putty and gold tones, so the fabrics follow suit with shades of beige, taupe and white. A subtle play of textures and shapes is the baseline of the home’s design. In the living room, for instance, a nubby herringbone textile covering the chairs (and echoing the brick pattern of garden pavers) are accompanied by damask pillows that evoke a Venetian feeling, while in the office a tufted ottoman and round table topped with an elegant fringe-trimmed cloth contrast with streamlined bent-arm chairs. Peppered throughout the neutral spaces, spots of color abound—from Blue Willow porcelain platters to several trunks and a desk lacquered bright Chinese red.
Having studied design at Manhattan’s Art Students League on the GI Bill after earning a journalism degree, Joe says he likes the process of turning design inspirations into affordable items, making them available for consumers across the country, "and then reporting back on how the public likes the products." Now developing a new television series called Timeless Design, he says the Ruggiero bungalow is the perfect, inviting backdrop for "making work seem like play."
MORE DECORATING ARTICLES
