Thomas Proctor: Classical Houses

Charles Roberts Studios produced photomontages for Thomas Proctor: Classical Houses, published by Rizzoli. Thomas Proctor is a Los Angeles architect who has designed houses in Brentwood, Holmby Hills, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air since 1986. His work draws on classical architecture, Mediterranean revival and American classical traditions, and the natural setting of each site.

Each image combines photography of Proctor’s houses with CGI. The added elements had to match the original photographs exactly in perspective, lighting, color and grain, so they could sit on the page alongside the book’s photography without any visible difference. Because the book focuses on architectural detail and ornament, paneling, moldings, vaults and carved stone all had to hold up at full-page print size.

The set covers interiors, a garden view and close details. In one bathroom, a freestanding tub sits beneath an arched mirror set into paneled walls, under a vaulted ceiling with a pair of nickel sconces. A barrel-vaulted dressing room centers on a double-hung window beneath a carved sunburst lunette, flanked by tall mirrors and a paneled vanity. In the entrance hall, a gilt mirror above an inlaid console reflects the staircase, framed by a groin-vaulted niche and seen through a deep doorway.

Outside, a pedimented pool house with columns and an open loggia stands at the end of a long lawn, with a carved stone urn in the foreground. A closer view of a sconce, a mirror and a glazed door with a sheer curtain shows the same care carried into the smallest elements.