Take a tour around the mesmerizing home of a fashion designer who wants you to discard the decorating rule book

As founder and creative director of a luxury fashion house, the owner of this house is a frequent world traveler – and this often means staying in hotels that are not necessarily to his taste.

‘Bland interior design makes me feel anxious,’ confides Johnson Hartig, founder of Libertine. He adds, ‘Within the first few hours of my stay I’ll often approach the front desk to talk to the manager about redecorating their hotel; I really should design one myself someday.’

If the colorful, exuberant interiors of the LA home he shares with his rescue dogs, Flower and Radish, are anything to go by, visitors to a Johnson Hartig hotel would be treated to a dizzying, fantastical tour of different continents. Think Persian suzanis, Moroccan pottery, Indian chintzes, Chinese reverse glass paintings and ship dioramas from England and North America.

‘I have been collecting since as long as I can remember,’ Johnson recounts. ‘Nowadays I tend to buy a lot of vintage furniture and artworks at online auctions, and I often forget what I have bought, so packages come and it’s all a surprise to open them and then I have to find spots for everything. I do a lot of arranging.’

Five years ago, Johnson was on his way to purchase a house in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles when a friend alerted him to the fact that a property in the historic Windsor Square district was about to come on the market. ‘I have always loved the neighborhood because the trees are more mature here, the houses have more character and they are historically protected,’ explains Johnson.

He continues, ‘I agreed to swing by and I met the previous owner, who was an avid gardener, so we immediately connected about gardens. It felt like everything aligned perfectly; within just 15 minutes, I knew it was my house.’

Johnson finished eight months of renovations – which included creating a more open-plan ground floor – just before the pandemic struck. ‘I returned from Milan the day before everything shut down, and suddenly I had some free time to work on the house,’ says the designer, who is prone to making decisions at a giddy pace.

He describes, ‘I was doing all the rooms fast, fast, fast. I tend to get very excited by color so I was trying things and then changing my mind halfway through. In one small room, I had the painters repaint the walls three different colors in the same day.’

Johnson taught himself to sponge paint and his work can be witnessed on the stair risers as well as the dining room ceiling, which he coins ‘the grotto’. Here, the walls are hung with a trompe l’oeil wallpaper of blue and white serving platters – one of the vibrant, playful designs from the three collections he has created for fabric and wallpaper brand Schumacher.

The room’s blue-and-white patterned rug was picked up for a song on Amazon. ‘I don’t care about where things are from. It gives the effect and it’s perfect with the dogs.’

Inspired by the frescoes designed in 1930 by Piero Portaluppi for his Milanese home, Casa degli Atellani, Johnson commissioned local artist Chris Evans to paint a mural of Californian plants in the sitting room. This serves as a verdant backdrop to everything from 18th-century portraits to surrealist art.

‘I think it’s about trying things and being unafraid,’ he reflects, adding, ‘Behind every painting you will find 30 or 40 nail holes. I’ve had art handlers come in and cringe when they look at the way some of the Damien Hirst works are hung.’

For someone whose day job is all-consuming – Johnson is usually up at 4.30am to be in the nearby Libertine studio by 6am (‘so that I have time to think and breathe and be creative before dealing with a hundred questions’) – pottering around the house and its gardens, planting a tree or hanging a new picture, offers the creative downtime he needs.

‘I get lost in the process; it’s the place I like being best,’ he declares, adding, ‘I’m not treating any of it very preciously because I know that I live alone and I can do anything that I want to the house. None of it is that important; it’s just a joy and I take as much joy from it as I can.’

Meet the homeowner

The fashion designer and founder of Libertine shares his knowledge of displaying collections

How do you hone your eye?
I devour auction catalogs for information – they often have extensive pictures as well as lots of information on each piece.

Do you buy in person or online?
Online has sort of spoiled me because you can find anything there. But when I’m traveling I will make sure I visit local flea markets.

Where do you source things?
I do everything, from auction houses to eBay and Etsy. With eBay, keywords are so important.

What tips can you offer on displaying collections?
En masse is always effective, but a group of disparate objects can be just as interesting. Try putting some 1970s kitsch next to a blue and white Ming vase – that’s where the surprise and joy comes through.

Do you ever employ a professional to help with picture hanging?
I hang everything myself and I’m fast: I can hang a group of pictures in 15 minutes or less. I will leave something up for a week and if I don’t love it, I will move it elsewhere.