For actor Taylor Frey, simple, minimalist design supports a space that must accommodate the yin and yang of his life — intense work by day and “wine town” at night.
Centrally located amid the hustle and bustle of West Hollywood, and inspired by the serenity of Asian design, the apartment Frey shares with husband Kyle Dean Massey is purposely “a little sterile.” Frey called the palette of beige, white and gray “a very clean slate to start and end my day.”
“An impersonal space — with artifacts I love, but could be anywhere — that’s exactly what I want,” said Frey, 30, who uses his dining area to run his company Elevate, an egg donor agency currently “helping hundreds of clients try to achieve pregnancy.”
“That’s a daunting task, so I needed a space where I’d feel incredibly comfortable and well-organized working, but not cooped up. Because when I open that laptop, it’s chaos, man, there are just so many emotions coming at me,” said Frey, who appears in the horror film “It Chapter Two.”
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A Jean Prouvé Potence lamp, with its single metal rod, hovers over the gray dining table, adding ample light and “cool, modern and inventive” architecture to the simple space.
Beyond the dining area in the open floor plan lies the leisure spot they call “wine town,” population: gray couch, coffee table holding books on Italy and Andy Warhol, and TV. Frey said it’s one of the couple’s “favorite places to visit.”
“We just love a bottle of wine; we definitely became wine connoisseurs when we visited Italy and you can just drown yourself in a bath of that stuff it’s so good,” he said.
Frey lived in Italy for three months shooting Gabriele Muccino’s “L’Estate Addosso” (“Summertime”) and said he spent weekends “jetting all over Italy, to Ischia off the coast and up to Tuscany a lot.”
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Why is this your favorite room?
This is the room where I get a chance to unwind. My favorite time is sitting here in my robe with Kyle after a long day, just turning off and watching a movie. It’s the best, and true recovery.
What was the design inspiration in here?
My life is pretty hectic right now. I can’t handle a lot of noise, so something about the way we’ve started designing in here is to help keep my mind as organized as the space is.
How would you describe your aesthetic style?
Elegant, simple, modern and chic. I would definitely call us minimalists. I wanted a color palette that was fairly neutral, so really the few colors we do bring in are forest green or a little bit of blush, which end up going together on the color wheel.
Love the Andy Warhol Polaroid coffee table book.
Kyle gave me the book for Christmas last year. I’m such a fan of his work and I love his Polaroids; there’s a raw quality and authenticity. It’s just the image — nothing fussed with or changed. He seemed to capture eroticism as well in a lot of his basic portraits. He gets the essence of a person and pulls it out.
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Do you have a favorite object in here?
The horn from Germany. I spent two weeks visiting Berlin and Prague last December, and I love Christmas and wanted to go to the Christmas market so badly. But I was terrified that something would happen, that there would be an attack, that a van would drive through and there would be a crazy shooting. You turn on the news every day and it’s its own horror film. But I didn’t want to live in fear — I wanted to eat all the food, have the hot drinks and buy things. So I got the horn at the Christmas market in Berlin. I ended up having the best time and it’s kind of a symbol for me of overcoming your fears and having faith and moving forward, regardless of what’s going on.