Have you taken on an ambitious Rental Revamp—or do you know someone who has? We want to hear about it! Reach out to edit@dwell.com with photos and a brief description to submit a project.

You can’t tell the full story of artist Kim Swift’s apartment in L.A.’s Casa Larissa—a 1920s Spanish-revival building which has become a legendary enclave for creatives—without mentioning her friend (and now neighbor) Jared Frank.

After all, it was Jared, an interior and furniture designer, who first caught wind of the enchanting site. An estate sale called his name from a sign dotting the surrounding hills. And upon walking into the place, Jared was gobsmacked by the trompe l’oeil murals plastered on all sides, along with the decadent chinoiserie and decor—all the work of the current tenant, fresco artist Lance Gaylord Klemm, who had fallen ill and was preparing to move out.

The landlord, a longtime resident who’s become keeper of the lore behind Casa Larissa—from wild parties over the decades to the covert love affairs James Dean and the Rolling Stones kept hidden within its walls—recognized a kindred spirit when he met Jared, and he eventually offered him Lance’s former apartment.

The transition was almost too easy. Jared was enamored enough with the place to take it as is, so all of Lance’s paintings remained intact, with only the necessary adjustments made.

Kim got to take in the full magnificence of the place when she stayed in Jared’s guest bedroom in between rentals. “Being enveloped by this wild painting explosion on every surface was so inspiring to me,” she recalls. “I just fell in love with that building.”

Naturally, Kim was top of mind when another unit eventually opened up two years later: a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment across the hall which shares the exact same floor plan as Jared’s, forming a perfect mirror image of the space.

Because of the symmetry between the two homes, Kim always knew she wanted her apartment to be in dialogue with his. She began by replicating aspects of Jared’s home, like the step in front of his door painted with a black-and-white sun. That project then spurred a series of other drawings and sketches.

Take the charcoal etchings on the living room walls depicting Kim in various states of repose. These were a collaboration with her friend, artist Jason Koharik—influenced by her first weeks there, furnitureless and sitting on the floor of her apartment.

During lockdown, she had long stretches of time to perfect the wallpaper-esque paintings that wrap the kitchen walls. The florals are an homage to the former tenant, late actor Taylor Negron (a close friend of her former partner), who owned plates with a similar pattern.

All those hours were a slow education in embellishing with paint, adding layers of depth to the plaster walls of the building already rich with history.

The dining room is another space where Kim’s impulses kicked in during what she calls her “crazy fever dream” phase of compulsive creation. In it, a serpentine plaster chandelier she made, illuminated only by candles, hangs over a marble table she designed, topped with stackable stone cheeseboards made from the scraps. “The apartment started taking on its own life, and the more I interact with it, the more it reveals to me about itself and also about me.”

Five years into this dynamic relationship with her place, Kim’s apartment and its twin flame next door exist as conduits that ferry kinetic energy back and forth.

Kim describes one evening where a cheese feast was taking place atop her dining table and a live piano player was tickling the keys in her apartment, as a harpist plucked a tune in Jared’s den. “People would filter between the two sides and have completely different experiences,” she says. “But opening the two doors, it felt like one big, magical house.”

Even the entrances are sublime, a sign that you’ve exited the base world of L.A. traffic and been ushered into a new realm of otherworldly beauty and charm. The opening vestibule to her apartment is cloaked in a glow-in-the-dark ultraviolet paint that lights up with a phantasmagoric display when the lights are off.

Musing on whether her landlord would undo all of this work and repaint everything white if she departed, Kim references a quote from actor Amy Sedaris, where she refers to a security deposit as a “personality fee.” Kim knows she’s never getting the money back, but adds that hopefully the landlord would find someone to take the place as is. After all, she says, “that’s exactly what happened with Jared.”

More Rental Revamp stories:

A Bavarian Baker Overhauls Her Kitchen in a 300-Year-Old Farmhouse

An Architect and an Engineer’s Netherlands Home Was Designed to Soothe

Textile Designer Josie Ford Adds Layers of History to Her 1920s L.A. Apartment

Project Credits:

Interior Design: Kim Swift / @kim_swift