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In Will & Grace, the seminal television comedy that originally ran from 1998 until 2006, Megan Mullally played Karen Walker, a boozy socialite, working (barely) for an interior decorating firm. As it turns out, the real-life Mullally has long been entranced by art and design; recently, in a meta-turn worthy of its own spin-off, the actor joined forces with designer Ames Ingham to launch their own Los Angeles–based firm, Ingham Mullally.
Because the living room is right off the entry, “We wanted it to be a place you stop and gasp every time you walk by,” says Ingham. Mullally found the painting by Antoine Chartres at Maisonjaune Studio, which set the tone for the room. Scannu chairs from Garde flank the fireplace; the armchairs are Soho Home (in a Pierre Frey fabric); the coffee table, swivel chairs, and sconces are all Stahl + Band.
Karyn Millet
Old friends and new partners in design, Los-Angeles based Ames Ingham (left) and Megan Mullally stand at the entrance to the Santa Fe home that was their first joint project together.
Karyn Millet
The back of the house offers dramatic views overlooking a valley.
Karyn Millet“I’ve been begging Ames for years to let me design with her,” says Mullally, who first met Ingham in 2000, when they were both involved in a small L.A. theater company. Ingham, enamored of set and lighting design, eventually left the entertainment business to work for Suzanne Rheinstein; she later opened her own shop in West Hollywood and launched a successful design practice. Among her first clients was Mullally, who is married to the actor and furniture maker Nick Offerman. Their collaboration proved hugely successful, with Ingham working on several more homes for Mullally in the two decades that followed; finally, they decided to make their partnership official and began taking on outside clients.
The scale of the living room necessitated several different “moments,” including a vignette on the back wall with a Børge Mogensen settee, 17th-century oil painting, Mike Diaz side table, and crystal lamp, all from Blackman Cruz.
Karyn Millet
In the family room, Ingham and Mullally created a reading nook centered around a collage by Georgie Hopton; the bench is covered in a Larsen fabric.
Karyn MilletTheir first project under the Ingham Mullally name, a 6,600-square foot home in Santa Fe, was created as a part-time refuge for a friend of Mullally. The house is meant to be suggestive of its environs but doesn’t indulge in any Southwestern clichés. Nor did the designers want it to feel too slickly L.A. “We walked the line,” says Ingham, who grew up in Manhattan with a mother who dealt in antiques. “You don’t want it to be contrived or corny or too fancy.”
In the dining room, rough-hewn wood ceiling beams contrast with the sleek oak of the Collection Particulière table and Croft House chairs. Chandelier, Giopato & Coombes; rug, Cappelen Dimyr; vases, Nickey Kehoe; ceramic wall art by Masako Ando.
Karyn MilletWhile the palette is carefully limited—lots of ginger and rust against pale walls, with slashes of black and brown—there is an abundance of textures and geometric pattern, lending depth. The ceilings in the living area are high—13 feet, with giant square wooden beams—so the designers created intimacy by anchoring the space with a cushy, modular sofa covered in mohair and a low, natural oak coffee table. In the entry is a tableau they spied at Los Angeles antiques showroom Blackman Cruz and bought in its entirety: a leather 1970s settee by the Danish master Børge Mogensen, a squat studded side table by the Mexico City–based artisan Mike Diaz, and a 17th-century framed oil painting depicting Neptune. “Sometimes you see something put together that just cannot be improved upon,” says Ingham.
The designers converted a pair of bedrooms into a long gallery space for displaying works like a painting by Celia Paul and rare Arthur Umanoff iron-and-leather chairs; the sconce and rug are both from Stahl + Band.
Karyn Millet
On the opposite end of the “Art Room,” a Hannah van Bart painting hangs above a credenza from Horne.
Karyn MilletArguably what makes the duo’s partnership unique is Mullally’s eye for art and where it should go. She began collecting when Will & Grace took off and never stopped; her mentors were Jeff Poe and Tim Blum, the gallerists who ruled the L.A. art scene for nearly 30 years, starting in the mid-1990s. While other decorators might buy art at the end of a project, Mullally believes that art is where it all should begin. She prefers figuration and avoids anything too mainstream or status-signaling. “Never is there a dud,” says Ingham.
Because so much sun streams in through the primary bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows, the designers added light-blocking cornice boxes above the curtains; all are in Pierre Frey’s Tupapati fabric. A four-poster bed from Pinch helps temper the high ceiling. The Nickey Kehoe chairs are in a Clarence House velvet; leather pouf, Stahl + Band; rug, Cappelen Dimyr.
KARYN MILLETIn the Santa Fe house, the designers went so far as to create a dedicated gallery space (or “Art Room,” as they refer to it) by combining two bedrooms; it is presided over by a haunting monumental portrait by the British painter Celia Paul. Another of Mullally’s finds, a painting of Adam and Eve by Antoine Chartres, dictated the direction of the living room; its warm palette is reflected in the marigold-colored sofa. At the end of a long hallway, a closed-up bedroom door became a niche to hold an impressionistic 1960s composite stone sculpture of a couple embracing. “Megan never stops looking,” says Ingham. “Art is the way she sees the world.”
Graphic patterns (including Rif from Nobilis on the sofa and shades and Charlotte by Pierre Frey on pillows) and creature-like poufs (from Coop Shop) make the office a particularly playful spot.
Karyn Millet
Pierre Frey’s Southwest-inflected La Smala fabric, a favorite of Ingham and Mullally, dresses the guesthouse windows; bed, Croft House; wall tapestry, Cappelen Dimyr.
Karyn MilletTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 20 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
