Thankfully, modern day has resurrected that posh interior design style modeled after Hollywood’s Golden Age. Who wouldn’t drool over Hollywood Regency’s glitz and glamour, high gloss and flashy elements? But for me the contribution goes deeper than show.

When I want to be inspired, I often look to the rooms and furniture pieces designed during the 1930s. While interior design can certainly make a statement and create a destination for occasions, to me, the design is about lifestyle. And, as a woman, it’s about feeling elegant.

Hollywood Regency style bedroom featured at sheknows.com.

Whether I’m in my living room, my office, or my bathroom, I want to feel encouraged. I want the structural environment around me (the walls, the chairs, the artwork, the tables) to be an expression of that beauty and heart that I live from. Hollywood Regency interior design most reflects these sentiments. With is universal and versatile ‘rules,’ I find the style allows me to be expansive, not limited. Eclectic, not contradictory. And strong, not over-the-top. I’m a changed woman when I walk into a room tucked in velvet and bouncing with light from shiny accessories and gold-framed mirrors. I am invigorated. I feel bold and courageous like the floor patterns that Dorothy Draper often chose for her hotelier clients.

Dorothy Draper lobby at the Greenbrier as seen on The Hollywood Regency Files blog.

More than that, I feel completely and fabulously elegant. It’s no wonder the leading ladies of the silver screen desired all that Hollywood Regency embodies.

Elsie del Wolfe, one of the first female interior designers, understood that style was not just a tactile experience, but also a state of mind.

 “What is the goal? A House that is like the life that goes with it, a house that gives us beauty as we understand it—and beauty of a nobler kind that we may grow to understand.” – Elsie de Wolfe (1865-1950)

Today, many designers combine Hollywood Regency with a modern twist. Nancy Corzine is one of the icons in this space. I love her work, like these custom-made sectionals:

But the Hollywood Regency inspiration is not just for me, or the individual who lives with it. As Hollywood Regency homes were meant to be a starting point of grandeur, a place for people to gather, to toast, to exchange ideas and stories. The contribution of this interior design style goes beyond the aesthetic to the souls of all who are blessed to enter its space. Interior design impacts everyone. You can visit someone in a beautifully designed Hollywood Regency home and you too can feel elegant, stirred, and breaking through to new levels of comfort, thought, and joy.

Whose house have you been to this past week? How did you feel? What was their interior design style?