Designing Your Home With a Photographer’s Eye
What type of project would you be willing to take on to realize your dream space? For Los Angeles–based photographer Magdalena Wosinska, it was tackling the renovation of an adobe home, which had stood abandoned for the better part of 50 years.
Globetrotting is part of Magdalena’s day job. Her understated, pared-down aesthetic has been featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker, and she’s worked with brands like Vans and Levi’s. One week she might be shooting a campaign in Europe; the next she may be filming a commercial in Portland. And while she’s become a keen traveler, she was on the hunt for a reprieve—a place to recover and reflect. Having visited friends in the desert, she decided to start searching the area for a place of her own.
In 2015, two years into viewing homes (and not having her bids accepted), Magdalena was shown a property by her realtor that was an original, yet vacant, 1930s adobe at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains in Pioneertown in the desert east of L.A. "We go into the house and it’s completely abandoned," Magdalena recalls. At first, she couldn’t look past the detritus that had piled up over the last 50 or so years—though there were some treasures. "I found a first edition of Dracula," she says.
Having converted a 1911 hunting lodge for her primary residence, she initially wasn’t keen on another full fixer upper. But what the adobe home lacked in turnkey ease, it made up for in other amenities. "I wanted a good view, close to the rocks, and a lot of privacy," she explains.
Magdalena was still contemplating the home when her realtor shared that another offer had been put on it, provoking her to move on the structure and the surrounding 10 acres. She hit several snags unique to desert living, like securing a mortgage—adobe homes are sanctioned differently than contemporary ones—and helping inspectors actually find the off-GPS property. Once it was hers, there was applying for permits, cleaning out much of the home herself, and meeting with various contractors. The project stalled.
Magdalena finally finished the full project in 2020. She put an addition onto the adobe and also added a lap pool, sauna, outdoor stage, and deck with enough handmade tables to seat 40 to the property. Lastly, she updated an existing well house to serve as a moon tower, adding a small bathroom for functionality and a ladder so friends could climb to the roof that’s adorned with comfy cushions and an unrivaled view of the sky. When visitors aren’t communing up there, the top platform also functions as an ideal photo shoot backdrop. The entire property has also become a venue for self-care and community, earning the name Desert Milk Adobe, which speaks to the home’s all-white exterior and overall nurturing energy.
And while Magdalena uses the home as a retreat, she occasionally rents some of the space to fellow photographers, a full circle. It should be no surprise, then, that the home has garnered interest, being featured in Dwell’s sister publication, Domino and the MAX series, "The Cabin Chronicles," among others.
Friends gather at the fire pit off the pool.
So how did she go from barely breaking ground to getting the finished product into the world? Below, learn more about how she used her photographer’s eye in shaping the home—and how you can, too.
The photographer and homeowner snaps a self portrait.
Literally Camp On Your Property
With the project stalled and nowhere to stay on the grounds, Magdalena camped out there often to learn the personality of the space, fundamental to the photographer. What was originally a setback ultimately became a gift. "The longer it took to build the house, the better I understood the land, the light, the wind currents, the sun, the snow, the crazy dust storms," Magdalena says. With this knowledge, she gained perspective on the materials needed to endure the extreme weather while complementing the adobe structure. "The best thing and the biggest challenge was finding out how to build a structure that’s not going to move," she says, as adobes can slouch over time. "Like concrete, solid, metal roof, no shingles, just super solid."
"For me, it was connecting to the story of this European artist that lives in America now and has this incredible adobe out in the middle of the desert," designer Sarah Solis says of decorating the home.
Echo the Earth
The setbacks also provided the time to find Malibu-based designer Sarah Solis of Sarah Solis Design Studio who signed on in 2017. They agreed to use the original structure as the core inspiration. "Let’s lean into the adobe," Solis remembers saying to Magdalena. "What are the things that make an adobe space iconic?" For one, an earthiness that emphasizes functional minimalism.
The walls of the home are intentionally bare, meant to draw the eye out of the windows and onto the natural art a few steps away.
Friends cook together in the kitchen. The overhead beams were part of the renovation.
The project reignited. With the vision set in place, the existing structure was converted into the primary bedroom, primary bathroom, and living area, while a new addition contains a kitchen, dining area, guestrooms, and a second bathroom. To blend the renovations with the original structure, Sarah took a cue from the plaster treatments and applied it to the walls of the addition. "All of our finishes, all the materials that we chose, everything’s natural fiber, everything’s vintage or wood or plaster," Solis explains. "Every material should feel of the earth."
The pergola outside, which frames a wood-burning stove, was originally intended to be canvas, until Magdalena learned metal would be much more forgiving in the desert winds.
Addressing the moodiness of the desert called for the home to be designed with durability in mind. To do so, its corners were rounded to combat the landscape’s hurtling winds, which can be thankless to sharp corners. The roof, Solis says, was required to be white for environmental needs and permitting, so the two decided on white metal roofing, which contributes to a milky monochromatic sensibility. The nearby pergola, a must-have in the desert’s brutal heat, is constructed out of wood and metal; a canvas version wouldn’t have lasted a season, Magdalena recalls being told by a fellow desert dweller.
Solis looked to Magdalena’s Eastern European heritage—she and her family immigrated to the U.S. from Poland in 1990—for direction on furnishings and finishes.
Take That Old Adage and Literally Make Your the Windows the Eyes of the House
For window framing and installation, they adopted Magdalena’s perspective honed while camping: Windows were strategically placed throughout the new construction to ensure a near-constant view of the Sawtooth Mountains. The smaller of the two guest rooms, which faces the mountains, has a window above the bed, making the evening stars a mantle for dreams.
Her talents are not just limited to photography, Magdalena crafted ceramic dishware used for meals and tea ceremonies, which regularly occur in the beloved primary bedroom window seat, one of her favorite spaces.
She also leaned on her knowledge gained from those early camping trips. For example, eastward-facing rooms were adorned with skylights to capture the sun’s movement throughout the day. Nightfall comes early when living on a mountainside, its shadows casting long across the home. To address this, windows were placed higher in an effort to pull in as much light for as long as possible. Similarly, the pergola stands tall to block the sun but not the view. "All the light and the shadows are thought out meticulously for the most pleasing light to photograph, almost," Magdalena reflects.
But the windows also served as a roadmap for living in the space. In the primary bedroom, an architectural window corner proclaims the beauty of the surrounding mountains. "I knew that that’s going to be a place to sit with my dogs, and that’s exactly what it became. It's a little place to do a little tea hang and just look at the stars or wake up in the morning to a snow-filled wonderland," she says of the nook.
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