Interior Design

A room without books, says Los Angeles interior designer Peter Dunham, is "a tragedy. It feels unfinished, like there is no intellectual presence." In a city derided for its cerebral shortcomings, the home library -- once merely a quaint signature of old money -- is asserting itself as a showcase for personal taste, designers say.

IN the new movie "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," Amy Adams plays an entirely delectable American starlet looking for love and fame in pre-World War II London. Her performance lives up to her character's name, Delysia (say it out loud: dee-LEE-see-ah), and indeed, the apartment she inhabits is as scrumptious as a box of fine, liqueur-infused French chocolates.

YOU can count the pieces of furniture on your fingers. In the living room, one bench and two tiny tables. In the dining room, another bench. And in one bedroom, nothing. In an era defined by consumerism, collecting and clutter, the Culver City home of Fette and Matthew Green is an ode to simple living, a place where minimalism isn't a look. It's a living. "It may sound weird to others, but this is how we define comfort," said Matthew, a mild-mannered graphic artist.

"I DIDN'T have a contractor," film producer Lyndall Hobbs says, cruising through a front succulent garden that reminds her of her native Australia. "I did it all myself because I figured I knew better -- even though I had never done anything of this scale before." The result? Workers toiling for months while Hobbs and her 12-year-old son retreated to various parts of the house as renovations moved from one space to the next.

Sometimes, it's good to be old. In the case of this Los Feliz Spanish Revival, it's very good. Built in 1925 for a widow who apparently had a flair for high-end European interior design, this tri-level house was among the first five homes constructed in the development then known as Ponet Terrace. Named after Victor Ponet, an early landowner, the neighborhood is home to several properties designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Wallace Neff and Gregory Ain.

THEY were the kind of browsers that no store wants: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents, armed with a search warrant and intent on seizing computers and questioning employees. The object of their inquiry: the skull of a small monkey, possibly an endangered species, that had been bought on EBay from a seller in Indonesia and sent to a high-end retailer on La Cienega Boulevard.

The peace sign turned 50 this year, but the golden anniversary is only one explanation behind the symbol's current proliferation in home decor. The sign, created by Gerald Holtom for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain, is not so much retro rehash as it is a contemporary statement about the war in Iraq -- and a reflection of designers' anticipation of last month's presidential election. Henry Road textile designer Paula Smail says her peace pillows sold out at a recent gift show.

Dorothy Kneedler Lawenda, an entrepreneur who began importing natural, hand-woven wallcoverings from Asia in 1948 and co-founded an interior design company that became an influential resource for the Los Angeles industry, died Thursday at her home in Los Angeles of age-related causes, her daughter Wendy Kneedler-Senior said. She was 94.

AS piles of sawdust collect on top of a sheet of plywood in a basement workshop, Brendan Sowersby and Will Rollins of the downtown L.A. design firm 100xbetter watch an enormous Shop Sabre 4896 cut and engrave the pieces of their DB chair. The Bauhaus-influenced seat used to take a full day to make by hand. Now their $40,000 machine can cut two chairs in an hour. "We can be at the computer designing something else or have lunch while our robot works," says Sowersby, 36.