Alison and Jay’s Warm and Creative Los Feliz Home

Name: Alison and Jay Carroll and dog Lefty
Location: Los Feliz — Los Angeles, California
Size: 1200 square feet
Years lived in: 2 years

Alison and Jay are a creative husband and wife team who find inspiration from around the globe. As recent Los Angeles transplants from San Francisco, the couple and their dog, Lefty, enjoy soaking up the Southern California sunshine in their cozy Franklin Hills apartment.

Alison and Jay are a creative consulting team specializing in branding development, art direction, interior design and photography for food, fashion and home interior industries. Together they own Wonder Valley, a new home goods brand inspired by the town of the same name in the Mojave Desert.

Both native East Coasters (Jay from Portland, Maine and Alison from Princeton, New Jersey/Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), the couple finds inspiration from the different places where they have lived and traveled.

Formerly a part of the menswear collective, Rogues Gallery, and then a member of the Levi’s Global Brand Concept team, Jay has a keen eye for fashion that spans the world.

Utilizing her experience and contacts she made as the marketing director for the California Olive Oil Council, Alison created the Wonder Valley brand flagship product, an extra virgin olive oil crafted from a blend of hand-picked Taggiasca, Ascolano and Arbequina olives. Read more about Alison’s culinary adventures and check out her amazing recipes on her blog, A La Alison. You can see more of this creative duo on instagram and on their website.

Our Style: We both take a lot of inspiration from traveling. Our style is just a mix of influences found out on the road with an emphasis on Japanese, New England, and California desert style and cultures.

Inspiration: People — Jack Pierson’s world, Dennis Hopper’s 1712 North Crescent Heights Blvd, Liz Lambert’s Texas, Sean Macpherson’s New York, Ray Kappe’s California.

Places — the high desert; the town of Inverness, California; Mashiko, Japan; Bailey Island, Maine.

Things — plant stores, desert gardens, World of Interiors Magazine.

Also common threads from a diverse range of places. For instance, the way so many cultures make their own version of ceramics from clay, the way indigo techniques have been developed and used similarly and differently all over the world, the way so many countries have the same version of a rug market, just the patterns and the tea service changes…

Favorite Element: We moved down from San Francisco a year ago and the thrill of more space and endless sunshine hasn’t worn off.

Biggest Challenge: Keeping Lefty’s fur at bay.

What Friends Say: The place looks and feels like a house you might see on Mount Tam. Our friends say it feels like we brought Northern California with us when we moved here.

Biggest Embarrassment: Killing the Meyer lemon tree, the first thing we put in the ground when we moved in. We’ve been learning a lot about Southern California gardening.

Biggest Indulgence: We’re fairly thrifty but we spend on kitchen equipment, framing, and art books. When we moved in, we had a great dining room table and bench made by Shin Okuda of Waka Waka. And we love to have Alice Goldsmith of Wild Vase by the house to cover the place in wild branches and arrangements. You can never have too many flowers and plants.

Best Advice: Objects from diverse places talk to each other when put together in a room. Enjoy the slow process of putting them together and the resulting conversation.

Dream Sources: George Smith, David Cafiero, JF Chen, George Nakashima, Garza Marfa, Commune Design, Teremotto landscapes.

Recurring materials: copper, cast iron, terracotta and Le Creuset orange line

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