Michael Masterson

When I'm in my bedroom, I spend time in two places. I'm either sitting at my desk, writing or paying bills, or I'm in my bed reading or looking out the window. Every piece in here has a story — a lot of family history. The desk came from my grandparents' farm in northern Oklahoma. I acquired it almost by default, because I was living in London at the time they had to move off their farm. There were 24 first cousins in my family, and there weren't enough nice pieces to go around to everybody. So because I wasn't able to be present when they had the farm sale, I was given the desk. The bookcase was also in my family for over 100 years, and it belonged to my great-aunt Mabel, who, in her dotage, told me that it had been brought over on the Mayflower. It came on a covered wagon perhaps, but not on the Mayflower. It's a lawyer's bookcase — they were made to be added on to in sections, right up to the ceiling, as the law library was built up. The hall tree in the corner is also an old family piece — most of the furniture in this room originally lived in Oklahoma at one point or another. I find most of my furniture at either swap meets or antique stores, or through family inheritance. My favorite thing in the world is to get The New York Times and Los Angeles Times on Sunday morning and crawl back into bed with a cup of coffee and read the newspapers for hours, and stare out the windows. I can look from my bed to a view of downtown and Silver Lake — it's this wonderful vista, and I'm in complete comfort. I bought this gilded mirror at a trade show in New York — it's not an old frame. I had it over the fireplace originally, and then I brought it in here, and I coined the phrase “miniature opulence,” because it's small but it's very luxe, and a friend said that kind of describes your whole house, and that's how I feel my bedroom is — miniature opulence.

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