Inside an Editor and Sculptor’s 800-Square-Foot Craftsman Bungalow in LA

Morgan Goldberg

April 3, 2025 at 8:00 a.m.·7 min read

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Historic homes often lose their charm when they’re remodeled—but Anna Furman’s 1912 Craftsman bungalow was enhanced by the architect who reimagined it for modern living. “Especially in LA, old houses are either gut-renovated to hell in a soulless, sterile way or they’re falling apart at the seams,” says Furman, a sculptor and Associated Press editor. “This house really felt like a Goldilocks situation. It’s 100-plus years old, and it’s retained a lot of its original character, but it’s been updated to bring natural light in.”

In 2007, Barbara Bestor, “who’s known for taking really simple materials and transforming them into playful-yet-practical design elements,” used an abundance of honey-toned plywood to overhaul the abode for the previous tenants. Furman was attracted to the warmth of the humble veneer that Bestor created, which appears on the wall cladding, kitchen counters, and built-in seating and storage throughout. “I lucked out with that,” she reflects.

Short, wood stools are peppered around the home. “I use those as sculpture stands if I’m being scrappy,” says Furman. “Sometimes I use them for plants, or I’ll have friends over for a movie night, so they’re just extra seating. I have a projector that comes down on the wood wall.”

“I made that last year and it just immediately made sense to me in that corner,” Furman says of her green lamp. “It anchors the couch in place—not literally, but visually. It looks organic, but also not of this world. That’s how I think about a lot of my art.”

Furman also loved that Bestor had vaulted the once-dropped ceiling, creating an airy, relaxed vibe despite the compact footprint. “My work is very intense and demanding, so I wanted to find a home that would feel like a little oasis—a calm, earthy place that’s still in the middle of the city,” she says. “It’s perched on a hill in a way that makes it feel like a little tree house, which is nice.”

When it came to refurnishing the space to make it her own, Furman let cherished heirlooms and artworks lead the way. In the living area, for example, her favorite quilt lays on the custom sage green cushions she had fabricated for the built-in sofa. “My most prized possession is that quilt,” she shares. “It’s made by my great-grandpa, Max Meyers, and he repurposed these scraps of fabric from clothes that my mom and her siblings had outgrown. It’s these anchor pieces in my house that are connected to family history.”

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Furman’s sofa is adorned with a Praying Mantis at the Park throw pillow by Lorien Stern and a red Dash pillow by Dusen Dusen, where she worked as the brand’s first intern years ago.

“I wanted to have a calm, earthy feel, so a light green couch definitely felt natural and connected to the plants in the room,” Furman says. “I just went downtown, to the Garment District, and touched fabric and picked one based on instinct. Then I found a guy to cut it up and make cushions.”

The sitting zone also features a white marble collared shirt sculpture, a nude figure Risograph, and a colorful screen print of chairs, all of which belonged to Furman’s grandmother. She paired these beloved items with a vintage cane-and-velvet armchair, a pineapple painting by Julio Cesar Williams, and her own biomorphic ceramic lamp. “It is a lot of bringing the old and the new together and bringing my friends’ and my friends of friends’ work together with my art—it has been really fun,” she notes.

“The checker mirror was made by an outsider artist,” Furman shares. “I found it in Laurel Canyon on Craigslist. It was sitting in someone’s backyard and I brought it to Ballards Artwork Framing, which did a really beautiful job. They put the frame inside it. There were no 90-degree angles inside, so they made it fit. It is just such a weird piece that felt like a relic of another time.”

In the dining section, Furman combined vintage bentwood chairs from the Rose Bowl Flea Market with a Hilma af Klint print, a checker mirror from Craigslist, and a 1980s Luchita Hurtado chalk drawing. “That one is really special because I met and interviewed Luchita before she was signed with Hauser & Wirth,” she explains. “She is just such an inspiration. I wish I could live inside so many of her paintings. I found it through an online auction, which was very exciting because I otherwise would not be able to afford her work.”

Pleated pendants hang over the island, which is accompanied by a set of secondhand counter stools.

“Next to the oven, up on the wall, there’s a print made by my friend Lauren Martin,” Furman says. “Above it, there is this ravioli rolling pin. It’s antique, I’m told, and it was from the sale at Marta gallery. It was in the owner’s house. And I just love it because all the grooves show their wear and it just fit to me right there as part of the frame.”

The big island, which is made of stacked plywood topped with white laminate, doubles as extra workspace when Furman is crafting larger pieces, but most of her sculpting happens in the studio at the end of the long kitchen (and at a ceramics studio called Clay CA). Her Pipersong Meditation Chair allows her to toil away for hours. “I am a very fidgety person and I get aches and pains when I’m working for long stretches of time,” she reveals. “It’s really perfect because it moves into a lot of different positions.”

Furman’s bedroom, with its George Nelson Cigar Bubble pendants and Dusen Dusen Hepta coverlet, is defined by the four floating shelves filled with books from end to end. “Books feel pretty central to my life, so it made sense to have them in my bedroom,” she considers. “I also wanted to preserve the plywood wall in the great room. I wanted the wall to stand on its own.” It is one of the standout features of the home, after all.