Robert Koch Woolf; Decorator for the Stars
Hyfler/Rosner
friends as the "Woolf pack,'' grew out of efforts in the
1970's to give legal standing to gay relationships. John and
Robert had grown apart romantically but continued to live
together. In the early 1960's, Robert met Gene Oney, who
moved in with both men. In 1971, after John Woolf learned he
had Parkinson's disease, he adopted both Robert and Gene,
who changed their names to Woolf. Later in the decade, Gene
and Robert also grew apart, and Robert brought home a new
man, William Capp. After John Woolf died in 1980, Robert,
Gene and William moved to a large estate designed by Addison
Mizner in Montecito, which Robert devoted himself to
restoring in his later years. "
November 15, 2004
Robert Koch Woolf, 81, Decorator for the Stars, Is Dead
By DAVID COLMAN
Robert Koch Woolf, the Los Angeles decorator who with his
partner, the architect John Elgin Woolf, created a new style
of luxury in Hollywood in the 1950's and 1960's, died on
Nov. 3 at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 81.
The cause was complications of surgery, according to Gene
Woolf, his adopted brother, and William Woolf, his
companion, who are his only survivors.
Working with John Woolf, Robert Woolf, then working as
Robert Koch, established a new vocabulary for glamorous
movie-star living; they synthesized 19th-century French,
Greek Revival and Modernist touches into a heady mixture
that has since been christened Hollywood Regency, which
foreshadowed aspects of postmodernism. They designed houses
for, among others, George Cukor, John Wayne, David O.
Selznick and Barbara Hutton.
Moving to Los Angeles after the war, the handsome, blue-eyed
Mr. Koch originally dreamed of movie stardom. But in the
late 1940's he met John Woolf, who persuaded the young man
to come live and work with him. They became business and
domestic partners. John Woolf, better known and 15 years
older than Robert, did the architecture, with Robert
providing the decor.
"They did their own version of Régence," said Paige Rense,
the editor of Architectural Digest, which covered some of
the firm's later projects in the 1970's. "In the 60's and
into the 70's, there was a fear of Modern and contemporary
architecture," she said. "Their traditional twist was very
reassuring. It was a certification of taste to have a Woolf
house."
Outfitting the horizontal, single-floor plan of a
hacienda-style house with white stucco walls, straight,
Moorish rooflines, Greek columns and mansard roofs - the
last a Woolf signature - the two men established a
distinctive look that appealed to people for whom stark
Modernism was too spartan and traditional styles were too
boring. In one of the more pointed responses to pure
Modernist style, in 1962 the two men bought one of the
largest so-called Case Study houses - a clean glass and
steel box of a house built in 1954 as part of a utopian
design project - and remodeled it completely, adding a
mansard roof to the house and a Doric colonnade around the
pool.
The restrained theatricality they brought to their many
projects also inspired a wave of renovation of the many
small bungalows in West Hollywood, which was in the 1960's a
Mecca for gay men out to create a new home. While many
"Woolf-ized" houses have been torn down, a number remain.
The Woolfs' own unorthodox living arrangements, known to
friends as the "Woolf pack,'' grew out of efforts in the
1970's to give legal standing to gay relationships. John and
Robert had grown apart romantically but continued to live
together. In the early 1960's, Robert met Gene Oney, who
moved in with both men. In 1971, after John Woolf learned he
had Parkinson's disease, he adopted both Robert and Gene,
who changed their names to Woolf. Later in the decade, Gene
and Robert also grew apart, and Robert brought home a new
man, William Capp. After John Woolf died in 1980, Robert,
Gene and William moved to a large estate designed by Addison
Mizner in Montecito, which Robert devoted himself to
restoring in his later years.
The three men lived together until Robert's death.
Mr. Woolf was born Robert Koch, an only child, in Temple,
Tex., in 1923. In World War II, he served in the Army Air
Corps as a tail gunner before moving to Hollywood and
starting his decorating career.
After having fallen into disfavor in the last two decades,
the Woolf style is enjoying a minor resurgence. The 1942
Pendleton house, one of the grandest that John Woolf
designed, is now the home of Robert Evans, the film
producer; Sean MacPherson, a Los Angeles restaurateur and
hotelier, also bought a Woolf house. Last year, the
University Art Museum at the University of California at
Santa Barbara presented an exhibition of the two men's work,
and Vanity Fair magazine is preparing a major feature on
them for publication early next year.