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"View Slideshow\n\nLos Angeles has plenty of mythical neighborhoods, but Malibu's Broad Beach has its own unique allure. A peaceful sanctuary for A-listers like Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn, and Steven Spielberg, this secluded stretch of Pacific coastline has never bothered with the usual celebrity accoutrements of security gates and cappuccino shops. With its epic swath of tidal pools, Dal\u00ED-esque rock formations, and steep bluffs, the Broad Beach landscape feels a world away from the big city.\n\nRichard Shapiro certainly had a distant time and place in mind when he and his girlfriend, jewelry designer Patricia Roach, stumbled across an abandoned roofless surf shack on a street lined with ranch-style houses and modernist cubes. \"It was love at first sight,\" Shapiro says of the bougainvillea-and-cypress-shaded property, which overlooks the beach and features a view of the Channel Islands. He envisioned a home, he recalls, with \"the look, age, and aura of a very old, windswept structure from the Mediterranean or the Aegean.\"\n\nShapiro, an antiques dealer and the founder of Studiolo furnishings, already had a place in Holmby Hills with Palladian details and large open rooms that lent themselves to entertaining; his Malibu home, he imagined, would be far more personal, private, and idiosyncratic, a place he and Roach could retreat to whenever work permitted. \"I wanted this house to be imbued with mystery,\" Shapiro says, \"to be a cocoonlike separation from Los Angeles, a portal to somewhere else.\"\n\nBefore he could construct what he now lovingly calls his \"folly,\" Shapiro spent the next year and a half wrestling with the various zoning boards that vigorously monitor California's coastline development. He agreed to stick to the footprint of the original structure, but as for the design he had in mind, \"there was no wavering,\" he says. \"I had this exact space planned from Day One.\"\n\nTo reach the house, visitors follow a terraced gravel path lined with dense foliage to a tower with a massive 17th-century walnut door from northern Italy. The door opens onto a grand hall that manages to combine the feel of an ancient refectory, a long-abandoned Renaissance chapel, and an airy modern loft. The walls are surfaced in frescoed plaster, a Cypriot fireplace from the 1600s warms the room at one end, and a fourth-century Roman marble torso stands beside double-height windows overlooking the Pacific. In the denlike library down the hall, richly colored textiles from Iran and Turkey cover pillows, cushions, and an ottoman that serves as a cocktail table. Hanging over the living area like an opera balcony is the mezzanine master bedroom, accessible via a twisting oak stair with a burnished-steel balustrade. Outdoors, a Moroccan-inspired parapet gate opens onto steps leading down to the beach.\n\nThe mix of styles and influences reflects Shapiro himself, a prolific and accomplished practitioner of many arts\u2014a true Renaissance man. In his 30s\u2014having built a successful career in the rental-car business\u2014he began traveling extensively, studying design, and acquiring contemporary art: a few Warhols, a Twombly, a Rauschenberg (his collection became prominent in L.A., and he served as a trustee of the city's Museum of Contemporary Art). Shapiro eventually began designing his own furniture and interiors, including the glamorous, retro Beverly Hills hot spot the Grill on the Alley (which he cofounded in 1984). In late 2001 he opened his namesake art, antiques, and home-furnishings showroom in West Hollywood's design district. There, his elegantly understated sofas and other creations blend seamlessly with the antiques he collects during frequent forays to Europe. Many of these prizes can be found at his home on Broad Beach: an 18th-century Spanish desk, a French roof corbel from the 15th century, a 1960s Dutch wicker chair. He drew upon his extensive connections in the design world to assemble his construction team, starting with Douglas Burdge, a Malibu-based architect. \"If Richard didn't already know the exact details of how to get something done, he was surrounded by experts who did,\" Burdge says. These included a team of Irish and English restorers, led by Ian Hardwick, who applied lime-and-horsehair plaster to the walls, and Russian artist Ilia Anossov, who painted the Renaissance-style frescoes. After the plaster had dried, the frescoes were partially sanded away to give them a patina of age.\n\nSuch attention to surfaces is evident at every turn\u2014from rough wood ceiling beams to deliberately chipped floor tiles. \"You want imperfection,\" Shapiro says. \"If things are slightly off, I like it.\" The play of textures gives the dwelling an air of calm and an unmistakable sensuality; unlike so many L.A. beach houses, Shapiro's getaway feels consecrated by eras rather than hours. \"It doesn't take a leap to imagine we're in some ancient structure on the Mediterranean,\" he says. That's a fantasy, of course. But why not? In a city dedicated to creating illusion, Shapiro's beachfront production has a transporting quality all its own.\n\nClick here to see a slide show of Shapiro's idyllic beachfront Malibu retreat."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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