Vincent Kartheiser small home

This smallish cabin comes in at under 600 square feet, but its cleverly-integrated drop-down bed saves a great deal of space in style.

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Vincent Kartheiser details
Vincent Kartheiser patio

Vincent Kartheiser‘s small Hollywood studio (designed by Funn Roberts with images by Joe Pugliese) is not what one might expect from a famous actor, but then again the trends have been shifting toward small-space living for some time now.

Vincent Kartheiser suspended bed

The bed in particular is a wonderful piece of multi-functional furniture. When lifted, the light beneath it becomes a ceiling lamp and the bed frame its housing. Set on the ground and the indirect illumination is more suited to heading toward bed at night.

Vincent Kartheiser bed down

A three-hundred-pound counterweight offsets the suspended bed, making it easy to lift and lower as needed by grabbing the cleverly-left empty space between the bottom and top of the frame. Centrally located under the slanted roof, it takes maximum advantage of the ceiling height to retract up and out of the way.

Vincent Kartheiser counterweight

The home was actually divided up into small rooms when Vincent bought it ten years ago. Removing the walls makes the space feel considerably larger, and all the thoughtful handcrafted details, like the sauna ceiling made of 2,500 pieces of wood, give us lots of things to look at.

Vincent Kartheiser bathroom

“I had this really terrible wooden front door,” Vincent told Dwell. “And Funn was like, ‘We’ve gotta get rid of it.’” They did, eventually, replacing it with a steel-and-glass one, of Roberts’s design, to match what Vincent describes as the ‘Japanese-industrial’ style of his home.

Vincent Kartheiser sauna

“What often happens in our relationship is I come to Funn with an idea and then he makes it into something that’s actually livable,” said Kartheiser. “Because I have these thoughts that seem really interesting, but they’re not really good for real life.”

Vincent ultimately sold his tiny Japanese-style home, originally built in 1912, for over $800,000, presumably moving into a slightly larger space.