When designer Stewart Horner of Penny Black Interiors first arrived at this classic midcentury 1954 West Hills home, he found it difficult to reconcile the front door with the gorgeous interior. The owners were happy to keep most of the rest of the home in its original state—bright, clean, and immaculately maintained. But the gloomy, covered entryway had to go.

“It all seemed a little wasteful, really,” says Horner. “I saw that entryway as a great opportunity to have a ‘wow factor’ element as you came into the home.”

The work: adding inside-outside cement tilework by Clé Tile, with triangles cleverly pointing inward, guiding visitors and residents visually into the house and through a giant glass pivot door. Inside, where a solid wall once separated the dark entry vestibule from a dining room, Horner’s team added a porous shelf system and bench, allowing light to flow in from the left-hand side and making the space feel at once brighter and bigger.

“I like to think of it as a narrative entry,” Horner says. “You start to get an idea of what the home is about before you get in it. It’s the cover of a book. It’s the starting point of a story.”