His Silver Lake casbah

What passersby may not know is that the magic carpet ride continues inside. Around every corner, from the bold lime- and chocolate-striped hallways to the paprika-colored dining room, designers Karen and Guy Vidal have held nothing back, leaving visual surprises through each fanciful archway. Look closely, and you'll even find gemstones embedded in the tile work -- aventurine in the kitchen (to promote a feeling of well-being, they say), and amethyst in the master bedroom (to facilitate a good night's sleep).

Most surprising of all, however, just might be the guy who bought their funhouse: a strait-laced criminal-defense attorney with a bashful manner and a couple of pens poking out of his blue-and-white-striped-shirt pocket.

Edward Kelleher isn't exactly the type of guy you'd expect to find lounging around a pillow-strewn turquoise daybed. Yet he purchased the place just as the Vidals had decorated it, complete with silk velvet bedspreads and mirrored poufs.

Look at Kelleher and Karen Vidal, and it's hard to imagine the two connecting. She's artsy and creative, a free spirit in dangly earrings and flowing purple kaftan. He's reserved, buttoned-down and picky. Very picky. But the two actually go way back, to when they were two Irish kids lifeguarding on the shores of Salisbury Beach, Mass.

"I was always trying to get Ed to move out of his apartment and buy one of the places I was working on," Karen Vidal says. "But this was the one house I didn't even think of for him."

THE Vidals had remodeled the house with someone totally different in mind -- an Eastside rocker, perhaps. Or, at the very least, a music industry executive with a funky bent. "But Ed swung by the open house and said he wanted to buy it. I mean, here's Ed saying he really likes something -- and for him that's a big deal," Karen Vidal says, still clearly attached to the project. "And of course, the added benefit is that we would still have access to the place."