How One Creative Couple Found Harmony in Their 1920s Los Angeles Craftsman

Interior designer Harrison Soll and Lenny Kravitz's longtime stylist Rodney Burns balanced their minimalist and maximalist leanings in their Laurel Canyon homeRodney Burns and Harrison Soll in the living room of their Los Angeles home. Soll describes their home as "super collected," adding, “It's honestly just a collection of what we both love.” The interiors were designed by Soll's design firm Harrison Soll Design with art advisory by Burns, who also owns the LA vintage boutique Church, and styles musician Lenny Kravitz.Nothing about where interior designer Harrison Soll is now was part of the plan. Five years ago, he was focused on his work, and he didn’t want any distractions. But when he met Rodney Burns, a stylist and owner of the legendary West Hollywood vintage boutique, Church, it set everything on a new path. They met in the fall; by New Year’s they were a couple. “I didn’t think it was going to be a relationship,” Soll says. He credits their shared interests for bringing them together: “We always found a throughline with design.”They now live in a 1925 craftsman house in Laurel Canyon. Soll took the lead decorating the nearly 1,400-square-foot home in a combination of his and Burns’s styles with many pieces coming from Burns’s eclectic collection of vintage art, furniture, and sculpture. Burns has worked with Lenny Kravitz as a stylist and creative collaborator for the past 15 years, and the singer says he admires what Burns and Soll have created together. “The mix of Rodney’s early- to midcentury style mixed with ethnic expression next to Harrison’s bold minimalist modern approach seamlessly blend together,” Kravitz tells AD.The backyard of Soll’s and Burns’s Laurel Canyon home is a bricolage of funky, inherited stonework and vintage pottery. The nail art above the fireplace has a cute backstory story: Burns and Soll had seen it at a vintage shop in Santa Monica and Burns regretted not buying it. When he went back to purchase the piece, it was marked as sold. But only because Soll had already covertly bought it as a Valentine’s Day gift for Burns. The giant Sergio Bustamante giraffe bust in the foyer is a delicate topic. “The giraffe was one of our biggest fights in decorating this house,” Burns explains. “I was determined to have that giraffe live some place in this house because he’s just fantastic, and the scale of him, and the rarity of him.” Except, counters Soll, that the placement of the giraffe is treacherous because the front door swings right in its path. “You just have to be careful,” Soll says. The foyer—which features a collection of masks and vintage paintings—was one of the most difficult areas to style, explains Burns. The couple was trying to be selective of what pieces to incorporate from Burns’s massive collection and at one point Burns suggested putting all of his masks in storage to save for another house down the line, or passing them onto Burns’s vintage boutique, Church. Soll dissented, saying, “No, let’s put them everywhere.” The living room features two sofas—a Joseph D’Urso for Knoll piece reupholstered in leopard fabric and a leather De Sede Terrazza. The carpet is the Antilocarpa style from Stark. A trio of fiberglass shell art was sourced through Kelly Wearstler. The art behind the sofa is a manipulated canvas garment bag by the artist Roosevelt “Rip” Woods, the first black artist to have a solo show at the Phoenix Art Museum. As renters, there were naturally limitations on what could be achieved. Soll got permission to retile a bathroom and install a new vanity. The doe-patterned wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room was an “ask for forgiveness” move, but his landladies ended up loving it. Burns, on the other hand, needed more convincing. “The carpet took many dinners of conversations between the two of us,” Soll says.Soll describes himself as more of a minimalist while Burns avows, “I’m a maximalist to the umpteenth power.” The couple attempted to strike a balance while still filling the space with character. Some rooms nod to Soll’s leanings toward minimalism like an office with a midcentury desk and a 1970s tapestry and the dining room where a Sergio Bustamante table and a Chinese Art Deco rug are the main attractions.When decorating their Laurel Canyon home, Soll and Burns had to figure out how to combine their opposing styles, with Soll being more of a minimalist and Burns being a maximalist. But, says Burns, “[Soll] has made me be able to take a pause and then also make me a little less attached to some of the things that I’ve collected and given me an opportunity to maybe show a little bit more restraint.” In the corner, a brass Maison Jansen palm tree mingles with a Sergio Bustamante monkey. Burns, who has been styling Lenny Kravitz for over a decade, says his approach to home design and fashion are one in the same: “Building an outfit, building a room: same thing in my opinion.” Kravitz offers these kind words on Burns: “What I love about Rodney is that he is limitless in his concepts and always thinks outside of the box. His visual vocabulary enables him to mix a vast stew of eras and genres. He pays tribute to our ancestors and uplifts new innovators. Always soulful, expressive, and elegant.” In the dining room, Soll placed a Sergio Bustamante table on a diagonal to make enough room for the couple’s large dog. “She’s a girthy girl,” says Soll, referring to the table, not the dog. The chairs are by Paul Evans and the Chinese Art Deco rug was sourced from Ariana Rugs. The Tom Greene chandelier was sourced from Burns’s boutique, Church. Burns’s maximalism is on display in the living room, where a couch upholstered in leopard Scalamandré mixes with zebra-hide chairs and a sinuous De Sede sofa. (That animal print couch, Soll wants you to know, also features a block of leather upholstery: “I just think it would have been too maximalist to do a full Scalamandré sofa.”)The living room is filled with brass sculptures (a Maison Jansen palm tree and a Sergio Bustamante monkey), bronze figures sourced from an estate sale in Arizona, and several pieces of sculptural artwork.The bedroom mixes patterns and textures with a stainless steel bed from TTMM, Paul Evans “Cityscape” nightstands, striped bedding, and antique bronze table lamps with African mud cloth shades. The 1970s textile art in the office is a vintage find of Burns’s that Soll loves. “I used to go to Rodney’s apartment when we first started dating, and I would be like, ‘Oh my God! Like, if we break up, I’m never gonna be able to find this tapestry,’” he says. Soll got permission from his landladies to retile the bathroom and add a new vanity. The metal Curtis Jeré artwork comes from Burns’s collection. The bohemian architecture of the home lends quirkiness to the design. The main bedroom isn’t a perfect square, making it seem like a stainless steel bed from TTMM is placed on a diagonal but is actually following the geometry of a very funky, angular bedroom.The couple has taken their time tinkering and adjusting the decor, taking a considered approach to collecting and combining their belongings. Soll describes the overall vibe as having an Afrocentric theme that’s also a little bit Ralph Lauren. “Our visions have mingled,” Burns says.Still, there is one last item the couple needs to complete the design: a blanket basket. But, says Soll, “We still haven’t found one we agree upon.”The backyard is also home to a shed (not pictured), which functions as Burns’s closet. Not a subscriber? Join AD for print and digital access now.Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of design in your inbox.Leonora Epstein is a design journalist whose bylines have appeared in Architectural Digest, Dwell, Domino, and others. She is author of the bestselling design Substack, Schmatta, a weekly newsletter about design that's highbrow, lowbrow, and unibrow. She is also the co-author of an anthology of pop culture essays called X ... Read More