Joanna Poitier deck the family home with an old - world elegance she and husband Sidney both appreciate .
This story originally run in the March 2008 emergence of Traditional Home powder magazine .
Sidney Poitier admittedly is more of a household name than his wife , Joanna . An Oscar , a knighthood , and a hot - selling book ensure of that . But in their Beverly Hills home , the roles override . Joanna , an internal designer , is the unequivocal champion ; the entire house is her stage .
Sidney and Joanna Poitier relax in the sitting room of their Beverly Hills home.Credit: Edmund Barr
Built in 1925 in theMediterranean architectural stylethat dominate the state during that earned run average , the theatre bespeaks Joanna ’s “ Old World fill comfortable California eclectic ” approaching to design . Her windowpane treatments are especially telling . Over vulgar bamboo blind that cool off the sun , panels of manus - embroidered and appliquéd silk and taffeta surge from below the ceiling beams to ensconce luxuriantly onto the base like sleepy-eyed computerized tomography . That congenial coupling of insouciant modern-day and courtly classic , of practical and refined , is what this firm and Joanna ’s signature style are all about .
“ Beautiful but well-situated ” is how she specify it . Her warmth for gold - leafed 18th - century antiques does n’t preclude “ the great unwashed place their feet up on the table . I have no trouble if children act with my crystal . If something breaks , it ’s not the death of the mankind . It ’s just an object , ” she explains . “ figure is n’t my animation . My life is my family and their well - being . ”
When she and Sidney moved in , the old owners had just repaint every elbow room . “ It was wonderful . The house did not require a single structural change , and I did n’t have to alter the color of one room , ” echo Joanna , who , after 14 films of her own in the ’ 60s and early ’ LXX , left the manufacture to marry and later start a menage with Sidney .
An archway connects the family room to the sitting room, where several of Joanna’s own sculptures grace the library table.Credit: Edmund Barr
Her design challenge was toedit the contents from a house three times this one ’s size , without sacrificing objects she and Sidney both love . ( Even famous person home are n’t spared the empty - nest syndrome . ) “ A lot of piece of furniture had to go . But not the artwork . We ’d never part with that , ” Joanna stress .
For estimable ground . She is an creative person , both painter and sculpturer , in her own right wing . While the couple ’s daughters — Anika and Sydney — were immature , Joanna studied sculpting with Artis Lane . Her teacher ’s sculpture of doer Djimon Hounsou commands meridian outer space on the Poitier ’ living elbow room mantel . “ He was one of our mannequin , ” says Joanna of the actor best known for his moving performance inBlood Diamond . A commercial achiever , Joanna sold her own carving of Hounsou , but many of her other bronze decorate the plate . The most treasured object in the family elbow room is an elongate bronze of a ponytailed charwoman that Joanna yield Sidney for his 50th birthday .
An power to casually mistake into a career alteration — or any other new office in life — is a skill she has honed over the years . A indigene of Nova Scotia , she start adult life as a manner mannikin . After she appeared on aVoguecover , a Hollywood movie music director contact her at her place in Paris , requesting that she travel to America for a screen test . “ I refused . I said , ‘ Look at my pictures and decide . I ’m not try out . ‘ ” The director did precisely that , and Joanna accepted a persona in Universal Pictures’The Lost Man . “ I met Sidney for the first prison term on the Seth , ” she say . “ It must ’ve been destiny . I was engaged to someone else at the time . ”
The 1925 Mediterranean house was updated before the Poitiers bought it.Credit: Edmund Barr
When their youthful daughter entered college , Joanna began her current career as a architect . Her first projection was grace the beach - front home of a booster . “ I tell her I could n’t do it , but she keep insisting , ” says Joanna . Word traveled , and her own design business sector , JSP Interiors , was the result . Another business took form when she was designing a villa for Vera Harrah ( of Harrah ’s Casino ) and decide to use mitt - pad drapery panels . “ We did the designs , then sent the material to India to be blow up . We formulate a sample line of these delicious embroider panels and took them to showrooms , ” Joanna tell .
When 12 showrooms say yes , she know she was in business . The Florio Collection , with patronage partner Janet Rodriguez , became a world . Its cloth sate Joanna ’s house . “ I love to find out old textile fragments in Europe , where they call me the pillow queen , ” she say . “ Pillows are like jewellery . you’re able to make a Pottery Barn sofa one - of - a - kind with dainty pillow . ”
Her self-aggrandizing fan , husband Sidney , admires not only her agency with pillows but her overall elan . “ From my point of aspect , she ’s an highly talented and talented soul . You see her distinctive dash in every room . It ’s impossible to have a preferent space when each room is beautiful to look at and extremely well-situated to live in , ” he says .
An antique Aubusson rug, the 19th-century French gilt chair in the corner, and such dressmaker details as the bullion on the flame-stitch armchair bring old-world elegance to the family room’s casual California architecture.Credit: Edmund Barr
Joanna ’s collection of old Aubusson rugs brings a refined close to the terra - cotta floors . When she ca n’t find the correct demode rug , she extemporize . “ For the bread and butter room , I usage - colored the thread for a unexampled rug interweave in the Aubusson mode , ” she notes .
“ I was born a accumulator , and Sidney and I do it to travel , ” she says . world - trotting , they ’ve bump strange objets d’art , book , and antique furnishings that have managed to hitchhike a drive home with them . “ The house is about 80 percentage antiques , ” Joanna judge . She began thedining room ’s collection of eighteenth - century Spode“years and years ago in London . ” The 18th - C Italian table was an day of remembrance gift from Sidney that she refinished to salve its worn look . ( Why revere age when betterment is in ordination ? ) When the sustenance room ’s long 18th - century violent lacquer coffee mesa postulate work , she topped it with mercury glass for a more interesting reflective quality .
As with any signature style , sure constituent contain repeating . JoannaÆs approach is both a gilt head trip and a fling with an old flame - stitch . Room to board , she cover generously scaled gilt chairman inflame - stitch wovensfor a look that will last — like her own amazing wedlock to a Hollywood legend .
The chinoiserie corner cabinet is one of a pair from Joanna’s Florio Collection. The weighty draperies balance the large scale of the furniture, including the antique French dining chairs.Credit: Edmund Barr
Sidney Poitier’s Legacy
Sidney Poitier ’s achievement are fabled . In 1963 , he was the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role inLilies of the Field . His performances inTo Sir , With Love , In the Heat of the Night , andGuess Who ’s come to Dinnersecured his place as a picture show icon . He directed many democratic movies , and in 2002 , was presented with an Honorary Award by the Academy for his “ extraordinary performances … and for present the industry with self-regard , style , and intelligence . ”
Flame-stitch fabrics and crest motifs are among Joanna’s favorite themes.Credit: Edmund Barr
Steps lead up from the passage to the living room, where a pair of Jacobean chairs are covered in antique needlepoint.Credit: Edmund Barr
Elegance defines the entry and dining room.Credit: Edmund Barr
An 18th-century chinoiserie desk and an antique black-leather Italian chair grace Joanna’s study. The gilt chair is a reproduction.Credit: Edmund Barr
In the master bedroom, a mirror and sconces are centered between classical architectural elements of columns and crown molding to create a dramatic headboard. The black bedside table, one of a pair, is from the Florio Collection.Credit: Edmund Barr
