Inside Kevin Hart’s Bold and Artful West Hollywood Office
There’s a quiet, meditative affirmation that Kevin Hart likes to repeat himself: “Oprah was in this bitch!”
Okay, he actually says it to everyone, not quietly at all, but it’s true. A year ago, the comedian’s media company, Hartbeat, took over the Oprah Winfrey Network’s 40,000-square-foot West Hollywood office building. And after a whirlwind redesign, Hart now wheels and deals in the very room where Oprah once considered running for president (okay, there’s no evidence of that actually being true, but we can imagine it).
“There’s an energy in this room,” Hart says in a new video tour from AD. “Every once in a while, The Oracle herself speaks to me. I’m trying to get a real mold of Oprah’s hand so I can slap Oprah five every time I leave out. The question is, How am I going to get it?”
But, if Hart likes to luxuriate in Oprah’s lingering spirit, Kai Williamson of Studio 7 Design Group says he was ready to rethink the previous occupant’s “palette of off-white and creamier palette, inspired by coastal design,” as the designer puts it. Hart had something a bit edgier in mind.
“I love the feel of modern [design],” Hart says. “I want open spaces. I want a lot of glass. Because in an open space, when you see people being collaborative and communicating and talking, guess what you’re going to do? You’re going to do the same thing. Energy feeds off energy.”
Hart asked Williamson to take on the project after working with her on his chain of LA restaurants, Hart House, and it was a doozy of an assignment. Hartbeat’s former office was only around 9,000 square feet, less than a fourth of the size, and the team wanted to move into the new space fast. So Williamson had just six weeks to create the design—making both architectural and material selections—before handing over the plans to get construction permits.
Building a design around Hartbeat’s core colors—red and black—took some imagination. “I just want to say, I’m very proud of the use of red as a palette, because it’s a tricky color,” Williamson tells AD. But rather than shy away from the challenge, Williamson made a bold proposal. “When you first show a client red marble, they look at you like it’s outrageous,” she says. “But we showed them how this Rosa Levanto marble could be a core design element, really anchoring the main space. We wanted to celebrate modern design elements and use saturated and bold natural elements, to give it a sense of warmth.” Sure enough, everyone loved it.
Williamson also wanted to go bold when it came to artwork in the space, and she worked with Creative Art Partners to curate an impressive collection of pieces from artists—many of them from Africa and the diaspora—like Serge Attukwei Clottey, Gideon Appah, Feni Chulumanco, and Moffat Takadiwa.
Williamson always knew that one of the most meaningful spaces in the building would be the screening room, where the team watches and workshops their productions. “That’s the space they’ve grown in as a media company,” she says. So she chose a color palette that was different from any other room in the building, and Hart thinks he knows why.
“I think Kai made this room blue because she loves clouds,” he says dreamily. “Light clouds that ultimately turned dark after rain. She’s a deep thinker.” Or, as Williamson says, “Blue felt more unexpected, and it had this kind of calm, serene feel.” Calm, at least, until after the screening, when Hart says the team will often head to the bar area for a toast.
1/19Kevin Hart’s desk is a Ventaglio table by Charlotte Perriand for Cassina, which reflects the angles of the Hartbeat logo.
Art: Feni Chulumanco2/19In one of the main lobby areas is a series of paintings called Old House by the South African artist Feni Chulumanco. “These figures really grounded and complemented the color palette,” designer Kai Williamson says.
Art: Serge Attukwei Clottey3/19In the upper level lobby, a bright yellow series of recycled plastic and wire tapestries by Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey hangs behind custom chairs by Kreiss.
4/19Williamson incorporated Hartbeat’s black-and-red color palette in unique ways throughout the space.
Art: Jan-Henri Booyens5/19In one public meeting area, they created a sculpture out of an old Laugh Out Loud Network sign, to commemorate previous iterations of Hartbeat.
Art: Moffat Takadiwa6/19In the conference room hangs a sculpture by Moffat Takadiwa, a Zimbabwean artist who creates work out of found waste like computer keyboard keys.
Art: Kaloki Nyamai/James Cohan, New York and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin7/19In this huddle room, Stua Gas Task chairs surround a conference table, and a piece by Kenyan artist Kaloki Nyamai hangs on the wall.
8/19Collaboration is a huge part of the Hartbeat culture, so the team asked for many different spaces to have comfortable conversations. Here, the statement sofa is David Snyder for Thayer Coggin, reupholstered with fabrics from Luum and Kravet.
Art: Moffat Takadiwa9/19Hart sits on the Roche Bobois Perspective sofa he compares to a catcher’s mitt, in front of a piece by Moffat Takadiwa called Found Black Keys.
10/19Surrounding this custom dining table are Dudet chairs by Patricia Urquiola for Cassina.
11/19For intimate podcast conversations, Hart wanted chairs he wouldn’t get lost in. Williamson chose these Lawson Fenning Moreno chairs. “I love that not only are the chairs comfortable, but they make me feel tall,” he says. “Some chairs you sit in, you go all the way back, you look stupid.”
12/19In the group podcast studio, Hart says they splurged on his dream microphones.
Art: Julian Pace13/19Outside the podcast studio hangs a portrait of Kobe Bryant by Julian Pace. Williamson says she put that there because “one of Kevin’s podcasts is called Gold Minds. And I just really look at the gravity of having built something legendary, having a signature presence in LA.”
Art: Sammy Binkow14/19A series of paintings by California painter Sammy Binkow.
15/19Above the bar just outside the screening room, Williamson says the old fashioned ticker was a “middle of the night” idea. “It’s an element that feels like it has life to it,” she says, “because you can put any text on there, or even images.”
16/19Williamson envisioned dark luscious blues for the screening room, with an indigo padded acoustic wall and custom Kreiss chairs inspired by Natasha Baradaran Nest chairs.
Art: Serge Attukwei Clottey17/19A painting by Serge Attukwei Clottey called Feeling Cool hangs over a small gathering nook.
18/19“If you sit on this couch, you’ll find yourself feeling like a baseball and you’ll just conform and get ready to be thrown,” Hart tells AD. “When I sit on this couch, you know what I say to myself: ‘Throw me into the rest of the day!’”
19/19Kevin’s dressing room lies off of his office. “He really has almost a full service apartment in his suite,” Williamson says, “He has everything he needs for whatever he needs to get done.”
