Brent Poer is certain about one thing when it comes to interior design: Minimalism makes him uneasy.
“When I walk into a minimalist home, I always think, ‘Oh my God, have you been robbed?’” Poer says, standing in his living room underneath a Juliet balcony covered in ceramic plates. “But then, I’m sure a minimalist would feel the [opposite] way about our home.”
From the outside, the 1922 Normandy-style house Poer shares with his husband, Beau Quillian, looks traditional and calm, with steep-pitched roofs and arched windows.
But once you step inside, the Pasadena house feels completely different.
Poer says visitors are often surprised when they come inside the space. “It’s either a quick ‘Wow,’ which usually means they don’t like it, or a long, drawn-out ‘Wwwwoooooowwww.’”
Guests also tend to ask the couple about earthquakes.
“Our decorating style is a mix of two perspectives,” say Poer, a 58-year-old advertising executive. “We have similar tastes, but Beau’s style is a bit more Miss Havisham — he likes a hint of decay. What we share is that our [obsessive compulsive disorder] is in overdrive.”
Many Californians avoid Mills Act homes because of strict preservation rules, but the couple enjoys the challenge of restoring and caring for their historic house.
“Thirty-six people toured the house the day I saw it, but no one made an offer because they didn’t want to deal with the government,” Poer says. “If you tell me I need a latch from 1922, I’ll find it. When we had to replace the roof, I brought nine different samples to the Mills Act office downtown — all meeting California code.”
Inside, the couple has decorated just the way they want, filling nearly every inch of their three-bedroom home with lively collections. As Poer puts it, they enjoy “going down a rabbit hole” when they find something they like.
Their home is colorful and has a touch of “grandma chic,” since Poer’s grandmother, Gigi, left him the contents of her Atlanta home. It’s a playful take on British decor with Victorian-era Tartanware boxes and pre-World War I Black Forest antlers on carved wood plaques that were once used as hunting trophies. They also have English Staffordshire porcelain dog and giraffe figurines, vintage British and French Majolica plates, and lamps and rugs they found on Etsy, EBay and at auctions.
“We know it’s crazy,” says Quillian, 54, a freelance fashion editor and wardrobe stylist who has worked for Harper’s Bazaar and Marie Claire. “But we love searching for treasures.”
Curled up on a vintage sofa they found at a Long Island junk store and refurbished, the couple likes to reminisce about their favorite finds from their 22 years together. These include Hermès dog plates, found in Japan, and circus paintings by Denes de Holesch, whom Quillian calls the “Hungarian Picasso.”
“When the French artist Nathalie Lété created a plate collection for Anthropologie, of course, we went crazy,” Poer says of the wall-to-wall Lété plates in the kitchen, which he describes as “odd and humorous.”
When asked how they choose their art, which ranges from a cut paper collage by Los Angeles artist Emily Hoerdemann to street poster art in their bedroom, Poer says, “We purchase things that speak to us, which means we will love it forever.”
For example, when they saw a bird-shaped guerrilla art piece in a Silver Lake Junction store — the same one they had seen scattered throughout New York — the couple, both originally from New York, took it as a sign they were meant to be here.
Although their home sits in the peaceful Historic Highlands neighborhood of Pasadena, the couple has experienced plenty of drama in their space over the years. Once, they brought in a shaman to cleanse the house with sage and cedar during a full blood moon. “And we’re not woo-woo!” Quillian says.
Three years ago, Quillian’s father fell down the stairs and nearly died. Six months later, a massive oak branch dropped and pinned Quillian for 45 minutes, breaking his leg in four places and giving him double head trauma. Then, last January, the couple had to evacuate during the Eaton fire.
When they got the evacuation order, Poer packed his bags and started taking paintings off the wall, putting them in his truck. “I told Beau to take one last look,” Poer recalls. “‘Is there anything you’d be upset about losing? We have to accept that whatever is in the truck might be all we have left to start over.’”
“When we left, I thought, ‘The house is definitely going to burn because of the winds,’” Quillian says of the January 2025 fires that destroyed parts of Pasadena and Altadena.
The next morning, their house was still standing just five blocks from the burn line, although looters had already been inside. The thieves didn’t take any of their art, which was a relief, since that’s what is most precious to them. “When we first got together in New York, we slowly started curating much of the art collection together,” Poer says.
Besides the art, each room in the home has its own unique feel. In the guest room, the couple paired the wallpaper with the drapes and the upholstered furniture. The first-floor bedroom is now a cozy den with dark navy blue walls, dog etchings by French artist Leon D’anchin and the Hermès dog plates, and an attached bathroom is decorated with Scalamandré’s famous prancing zebra pattern wallpaper.
In the kitchen, where the couple hosted more than 20 people for a Southern-style New Year’s Day party in January with black-eyed peas, ham and collard greens, they added new counter tops and painted the cabinets a shiny Benjamin Moore Marine Blue. Poer installed all the brass campaign hardware himself. “It just takes a steady hand and the willingness to drill a million little holes,” he says.
Four years after buying the house in 2021, the couple transformed the garage into a stylish guest house with a bathroom, shower and a custom cat box for Mr. Kitty, or “MK,” who came with the house.
“Brent went from telling me ‘Don’t feed that cat’ to designing a custom cat box for him in the guest house,” Quillian says, laughing.
Like the den, the walls of the guest house are painted a warm green hue for a relaxing feel. The couple also installed IKEA Pax built-ins and closets and paired them with Billy bookcases with added trim to give them a custom look.
There’s a lot to look at, but the interiors of the home feel cohesive rather than chaotic thanks to the couple’s color choices and how well they work together. Poer likes to joke that he has to get rid of Quillian’s things when he isn’t looking or “he would climb into the trash can and pull things back out.” But their teamwork and shared love of British decor make the home feel sentimental and reflect their long history together living on both the East and West Coasts.
There’s a poster by Lété that Poer and Quillian bought at John Derian in New York when they didn’t have much money, portraits of them and their dogs by Carter Kustera, and at the top of the stairs, the ashes of their previous pets rest in custom-painted dog urns.
On one of their many gallery walls, Poer proudly displays their most prized possession: a recent drawing of him and their three dogs, Selene, Otis and Sister, by fashion illustrator Richard Haines, whom Poer contacted directly on Instagram. “Beau always says the dogs follow me around like a school of fish,” he says. “I gave it to him at Christmas, and he cried when he opened it. He said it’s his favorite thing I’ve ever given him.”
Their friend Georgia Archer says the couple’s home “feels polished without trying to win an argument, beautiful but very cozy and livable, and very much ‘them.’” She recently asked them to help remodel her and her husband Anthony Dominici’s Los Angeles home. “Brent is bolder, and Beau more restrained, which is why they work so well as a team.”
When asked how many items they have in the house, Poer says he’d rather not know, “only because I want to believe there is room for more.”
And if there ever is a major earthquake, he says, they are prepared. Everything is installed on earthquake hangers, “so we aren’t showered in a downpour of porcelain.”
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